Jun 15, 2025
LUSTY GHOST (47) BY NICK RELPH (2023)
seen from Italy
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seen from United States
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seen from United States
seen from T1
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LUSTY GHOST (47) BY NICK RELPH (2023)
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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Nick Relph Lusty Ghost (39) 2023 Cardboard, stickers, tape, silkscreen ink, mica 91.4 x 142.9 x 1.6 cm (36 x 56.3 x 0.6 in.)
by Nick Relph
source: collectionarchive.tumblr.com
Nick Relph, “Doing the Undoing”, 2010 via VVork
Oliver Payne and Nick Relph,
Technical Taxi, 2007
Not Gate, 2016
Nick Relph