It’s Feral Friday!
This week we’re taking a look at Taschen: Oliver Payne & Nick Relph. This beautifully designed exhibition catalog was printed by Busch Druck Medien Verlag (Bielefeld, Deutschlan) and published by Kerber Verlag in New York in 2004. It accompanied the exhibition Oliver Payne & Nick Relph, which was presented by the National Museum of Art (Oslo) and the Musee d'Art Moderne (Paris) the same year. Designed by graphic designer and artist Halvor Bodin, the text was authored by Payne & Relph in collaboration with curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, Andrea Kroknes (Senior Curator of the National Museum), and Sune Nordgren (director of the National Museum at the time).
Oliver Payne & Nick Relph are a British artist duo who internationally exhibited film, video, & installation works from 1999 until 2009. Their practice grappled with themes of cultural identity, subcultures (such as skater, gaming, and DIY cultures), and corporate imperialism. This publication is particularly interesting within the context of our collection because it juxtaposes the design language of Fine Press movement forerunners like the Kelmscott Press with the lo-fi aesthetics of early internet & DIY culture and advertising, bringing the principles of the Arts & Crafts movement into critical conversation with the aesthetic and cultural landscape of our time.
In their early video work Driftwood (a "psycho-geographical tour of London"), Payne & Relph call to 'smash the symbols of the Empire in the name of nothing but the heart's longing for grace.' They demonstrate this ethos by gaming information and cataloging systems through their choice of the title Taschen, the moniker of one of the most ubiquitous and celebrated publishers of art books, thereby hacking their way into in a realm where artists working in new media and experimental art were rarely represented.
--Ana, Special Collections Graduate Intern
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