NICK RELPH

25 Apr - 25 Jun 2017 Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn
Installation Views
Press release

NICK RELPH

25.04.-25.06.2017 / BONNER KUNSTVEREIN, BONN

 

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Nick Relph’s photography, sculpture, installation and video draw diversely upon popular culture, referencing images from advertising, fashion, music and art. His layered works often involve both digital and analogue media as images are reprocessed from one format to another, occasionally dissolving into abstraction.

 

This exhibition presents a series of video collages, including two new, commissioned works. ‘What’s Going On Here’ (2017) employs images appropriated from hoardings erected around construction sites in the city of New York. Captured using a portable, hand-held scanner, the distorted, dirt and graffiti laden architectural renderings appear as fragmentary details of a city that is being intensively redesigned and rebuilt.

 

‘Corrupt Punk Composite’ (2017) revisits material from an earlier video entitled ‘The Punk and Her Music’ (2010). The film collages footage that Relph recorded recently in London with sound and imagery from other sources including 1980’s French and Japanese television documentaries about Punk subculture in the UK.

 

These two films are shown together with ‘Jazz Hands’(2011). Composed entirely of still images, the work splices together imagery from the pages of two monographic books, one about the artist Isa Genzken, the other focusing on the life and work of the fashion designer, Ralph Lauren. The film’s soundtrack was recorded in the 1970’s by the French ornithologist Jean-Claude Roché and features bird calls that are rumoured to have been embellished with other sound effects.

 

The exhibition is Relph’s first solo exhibition in Germany. It is generously supported by the Ministerium für Familie, Kinder, Jugend, Kultur und Sport des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen and the exhibition opening is sponsored by Bönnsch and Reverchon.

 

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Installation photography Mareike Tocha

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