Nick Waplington (born 1965) is a British / American
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
and
photographer
A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs.
Duties and types of photograp ...
. Many books of Waplington's work have been published, both self-published and through
Aperture
In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...
,
Cornerhouse,
Mack,
Phaidon, and
Trolley. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
and
The Photographers' Gallery
The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London by Sue Davies opening on 14 January 1971, as the first public gallery in the United Kingdom devoted solely to photography.
It is also home to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, established ...
in London,
at
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
in the USA,
and at the
National Museum of Photography, Film & Television
The National Science and Media Museum (formerly The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1983–2006 and then the National Media Museum, 2006–2017), located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum G ...
in Bradford, UK;
and in group exhibitions at
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
, Italy
and
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, New York City.
In 1993 he was awarded an Infinity Award for Young Photographer by the
International Center of Photography
The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...
.
His work is held in the permanent collections of the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...
in New York City,
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
and
Government Art Collection
The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in the UK and ...
in London,
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...
,
the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
and
Royal Library, Denmark
The Royal Library () in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and the academic library of the University of Copenhagen. It is among the largest libraries in the world and the largest in the Nordic countries. In 2017, it merged with the ...
.
Life and work
Waplington was born in
Aden
Aden () is a port city located in Yemen in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula, on the north coast of the Gulf of Aden, positioned near the eastern approach to the Red Sea. It is situated approximately 170 km (110 mi) east of ...
, Yemen.
He traveled extensively during his childhood as his father worked as a scientist in the nuclear industry. He studied art at
West Sussex College of Art & Design
Northbrook College is a further education and higher education college that is part of the Chichester College Group.
It currently has three campuses: Broadwater Campus and West Durrington Campus in Worthing and Shoreham Airport Campus in Shor ...
in Worthing,
Trent Polytechnic in Nottingham and the
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...
in London.
From 1984, Waplington would regularly visit his grandfather on the Broxtowe Estate in
Aspley,
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located south-east of Sheffield and nor ...
, where he began to photograph his immediate surroundings. Friends and neighbours of his family became his subject matter of choice.
He continued with this work on and off for the next 15 years and from it came two books (''Living Room'' and ''Weddings, Parties, Anything'') and numerous exhibitions.
His book ''Other Edens'' (1994) focused on environmental concerns and, although it was conceived and worked on at the same time as ''Living Room,'' was seen as a major departure in style and content. This work is global in nature and its ideas are ambiguous and multi-layered.
Waplington's work was included in the touring exhibition, ''The Dead,'' curated by
Val Williams and Greg Hobson, which opened at the
National Museum of Photography, Film & Television
The National Science and Media Museum (formerly The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1983–2006 and then the National Media Museum, 2006–2017), located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum G ...
in 1995.
Other bodies of his work include ''Safety in Numbers'' (1997), a bleak study of the
ecstasy
Ecstasy most often refers to:
* Ecstasy (emotion), a trance or trance-like state in which a person transcends normal consciousness
* Religious ecstasy, a state of consciousness, visions or absolute euphoria
* Ecstasy (philosophy), to be or stand o ...
drug culture in the mid-1990s; ''The Indecisive Memento'', a global road trip where the journey itself was the artwork (1999);
''Truth or Consequences'' (2001), a pictorial game based on the history of photography using the town of
Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
Truth or Consequences (founded as Hot Springs) is a city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Sierra County. In 2020, the population was 6,052. It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names for having chosen t ...
as a backdrop, inspired by the rules of the 1950s television show; and ''You Love Life'' (2005), in which he uses pictures taken over a 20-year period to construct an autobiographical narrative.
''Learn How to Die the Easy Way'' (2002), Waplington's contribution to a group exhibition in part of the
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
2001,
[Learn How to Die the Easy Way: Nick Waplington]
T J Boulting. Accessed 3 July 2017 expressed a yearning for the artistic and commercial freedom that the web might yet expose and a celebration of the dislocated reason behind conventional thoughts and media.
Waplington's graphic novel ''Terry Painter'' was made in collaboration with
Miguel Calderon in 2003. This and other projects with Calderon including ''The Garden of Suburban Delights'' have been exhibited in Europe and the US.
In December 2007, the project space at the
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fi ...
in London showed his slide show of found internet photos, entitled ''You Are Only What You See.''
The work was available at the time bound together in 10 publications of 100 images each,
and there was a separate catalog of original photos by Waplington called ''Double Dactyl'' (2008).
Waplington worked on a major book project with the fashion designer
Alexander McQueen
Lee Alexander McQueen (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen (brand), Alexander McQueen label in 1992 and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His ac ...
during 2008/2009, called ''Working Process'' (2013), the title refers to both McQueen's working process as a fashion designer and Waplington's working process as an artist making photo books. In March 2015
this project became the first one-person exhibition by a British photographer in the main exhibition space at
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
in London.
In 2011 Waplington self-published ''Lackadaisical'', using a
print on demand service, his response to increasingly expensive photobooks. It was later edited and expanded in the form of another edition called ''Extrapolations''.
While continuing to make photographic works Waplington has since 2010 devoted most of his time to his practice as a painter.
Waplington participated in the photography collective
This Place, founded by
Frédéric Brenner,
contributing the book ''Settlement'' (2014), a study of
Jewish settlers living in the
West Bank
The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
, portrait and landscape photographs taken with a
large format camera
Large format photography refers to any imaging format of or larger. Large format is larger than "medium format", the or size of Hasselblad, Mamiya, Rollei, Kowa, and Pentax cameras (using 120- and 220-roll film), and much larger tha ...
.
Publications
Books by Waplington
*''Living Room.''
**Manchester:
Cornerhouse, 1991.
**New York:
Aperture
In optics, the aperture of an optical system (including a system consisting of a single lens) is the hole or opening that primarily limits light propagated through the system. More specifically, the entrance pupil as the front side image o ...
, 1991. .
*''Other Edens.'' New York: Aperture, 1994. .
Marianne Wiggins contributes an introduction.
*''Weddings, Parties, Anything.''
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist and short story writer. His 1993 novel ''Trainspotting (novel), Trainspotting'' was made into a Trainspotting (film), film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, ...
contributes an essay.
**''Weddings, Parties, Anything.'' New York: Aperture, 1996. UK edition.
**''The Wedding.'' New York: Aperture, 1996. . US edition.
*''Safety in Numbers.''
**London: Booth Clibborn, 1997.
**London: Booth Clibborn, 2002. .
*''The Indecisive Memento.'' London: Booth Clibborn, 1999.
.
*''Truth or Consequences.'' London:
Phaidon, 2001. .
*''Learn how to die the easy way.'' London:
Trolley, 2002. . Waplington's contribution to a group exhibition at
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
in 2001.
*''Terry Painter.'' Self-published, 2003. Graphic novel, art directed, story and concept by Waplington and
Miguel Calderon and illustration by Domingo & Celilia.
*''You Love Life.'' London: Trolley, 2005. .
*''Double Dactyl.'' London: Trolley, 2008. .
*''Working Process.'' New York: Damiani, 2013. .
*''Surf Riot.'' New York: Little Big Man, 2011. Edition of 300 copies.
*''Lackadaisical.'' New York: self-published, 2011. Edition of 100 copies.
**Second expanded edition. New York: self-published, 2011. Edition of 100 copies.
*''Extrapolations.'' New York: self-published, 2011. Edition of 100 copies.
*''The Patriarch's Wardrobe.'' Melbourne: PAMBook, 2012. .
*''Settlement.'' London:
Mack, 2014. .
*''Made Glorious Summer.'' Tokyo: Powershovel, 2014. . 3 volumes and 1 insert. Edition of 500 copies.
*''Living Room Work Prints.'' New York: Little Big Man, 2015. Edition of 700 copies.
*''Cunt Away.'' London: Morel Books. .
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist and short story writer. His 1993 novel ''Trainspotting (novel), Trainspotting'' was made into a Trainspotting (film), film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, ...
contributes an essay. Edition of 200 Copies
*''We Live As We Dream, Alone.'' London: Morel, 2016. Edition of 500 copies.
*''Neither A Salt Spring Nor A Horse.'' New York: Pacific, 2018. Edition of 400 copies
*''Hackney Riviera.'' Jesus Blue, 2019.
*''The Search for a Superior Moral Justification for Selfishness.'' London: Morel, 2019.
*''Anaglypta 1980–2020.'' Self-published / Jesus Blue, 2020. . Edition of 1000 copies.
*''Comprehensive.'' Phaidon Press, 2023. .
Zines by Waplington
*''A Good Man's Grave Is His Sabbath.'' Deadbeat Club 32. Deadbeat Club/Little Big Man, 2015. Edition of 400 copies.
*''Sesquipedalian''. Geneva: Innen, 2017. Edition of 500 copies.
*''Thomas Floored''. Self Published: JesusBlue Books, 2020 Edition of 25 copies.
*''SOMMAT''. London & New York: JesusBlue Books / 1972, 2021. Edition of 650 copies.
Book paired with another
*''Working Process.'' Bologna, Italy: Damiani, 2013. Edited by
Alexander McQueen
Lee Alexander McQueen (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen (brand), Alexander McQueen label in 1992 and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His ac ...
. . With a foreword by Susannah Frankel.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
*''Living Room,''
The Photographers' Gallery
The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London by Sue Davies opening on 14 January 1971, as the first public gallery in the United Kingdom devoted solely to photography.
It is also home to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, established ...
, London, 1990–1991.
*''Living Room,'' and ''Circles of Civilization,''
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
, Philadelphia, PA, 1992.
*''Other Edens,'' The Photographers' Gallery, London, 1994–1995.
*''Weddings, Parties, Anything,''
National Museum of Photography, Film & Television
The National Science and Media Museum (formerly The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1983–2006 and then the National Media Museum, 2006–2017), located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum G ...
, Bradford, UK, 1996.
*''You Are Only What You See'' and ''Double Dactyl,''
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fi ...
, London, 2007.
*''Working Process,''
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...
, London, 2015.
Group exhibitions
*''The Dead,'' National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1995. Curated by
Val Williams and Greg Hobson. Work by various photographers including Waplington,
Nobuyoshi Araki
, professionally known by the mononym , is a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist. Known primarily for photography that blends eroticism and bondage in a fine art context, he has published over 500 books.
Early life and education
Araki ...
,
Krass Clement,
Donigan Cumming,
Hans Danuser,
Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His '' Piss Christ'' (1987) is an amber-tinged photograph of ...
.
*''Learn How to Die the Easy Way,''
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...
, 2001.
*''This Place,''
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
, Brooklyn, New York City, 2016. Photographs by Waplington,
Frédéric Brenner,
Wendy Ewald,
Martin Kollar,
Josef Koudelka
Josef Koudelka (born 10 January 1938) is a Czech-French photographer. He is a member of Magnum Photos and has won awards such as the Prix Nadar (1978), a Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989), a Grand Prix Henri Cartier-Bresson (1991) ...
,
Jungjin Lee,
Gilles Peress
Gilles Peress (born December 29, 1946) is a French photographer and a member of Magnum Photos.
Peress began working with photography in 1970, having previously studied political science and philosophy in Paris. One of Peress' first projects exa ...
,
Fazal Sheikh
Fazal Sheikh (born June 27, 1965 in New York City) is an artist who uses photographs to document people living in displaced and marginalized communities around the world.
Life and career
Fazal Sheikh is an artist who uses photographs to documen ...
,
Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore (born October 8, 1947) is an American photographer known for his images of scenes and objects of the banal, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography. His books include ''Uncommon Places'' (1982) and ''American Surfaces ...
,
Rosalind Fox Solomon
Rosalind Fox Solomon (April 2, 1930 – June 23, 2025) was an American photographer based in New York City.
In 2007, the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography acquired Solomon's archive, which includes her photographic archive ...
,
Thomas Struth
Thomas Struth (born 11 October 1954) is a German photographer who is best known for his ''Museum Photographs'' series, black and white photographs of the streets of Düsseldorf and New York taken in the 1970s, and his family photographs series. ...
, and
Jeff Wall
Jeffrey Wall, Order of Canada, OC, Royal Society of Canada, RSA (born September 29, 1946) is a Canadian photographer. He is artist best known for his large-scale back-lit Cibachrome photographs and art history writing. Early in his career, he h ...
.
*''A Handful of Dust,''
Le Bal, Paris, October 2015 – January 2016;
Whitechapel Gallery
The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fi ...
, London, June–September 2017. Curated by
David Campany
David Campany (born 8 October 1967) is a British writer, curator, artist and educator, working mainly with photography. He has written and edited books; contributed essays and reviews to other books, journals, magazines and websites; curated pho ...
.
Awards
*1993: Infinity Award: Young Photographer,
International Center of Photography
The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...
, New York City
[1993 Infinity Award: Young Photographer]
International Center of Photography
The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...
. Accessed 3 July 2017
Collections
Waplington's work is held in the following permanent collections:
*
Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, UK
*
Government Art Collection
The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in the UK and ...
, London: 1 print
*
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
(MoMA), New York City
*
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...
, New York City
*
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...
, Canberra, Australia: 5 prints
*
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
, Philadelphia, PA: 4 prints
*
Royal Library, Denmark
The Royal Library () in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and the academic library of the University of Copenhagen. It is among the largest libraries in the world and the largest in the Nordic countries. In 2017, it merged with the ...
*
Science Museum Group
The Science Museum Group (SMG) consists of five British museums:
* The Science Museum in South Kensington, London
* The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester
* The National Railway Museum in York
* The Locomotion Museum (formerly the Na ...
, UK: 2 prints and a book (as of 24 October 2022)
*
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
, London: 14 pieces
References
External links
*
Waplington's "Diary" site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Waplington, Nick
1965 births
Living people
Photographers from Sussex
Alumni of Nottingham Trent University