WAPLINGTON, Nick

About English photographer, Nick WAPLINGTON (b.1965, in Aden)

Nick WAPLINGTON photographed his immediate surroundings, his friends and neighbors as well as the urban life of Nottingham as a schoolboy. For his debut book 'Living Room', he spent many weekends from 1986 onwards with two working-class families in Nottingham. He took part in their lives and documented the everyday life between chaos and happiness in a society with no prospects. The series was continued in the photo books 'Weddings, Parties, Anything'. His photo reportage 'Truth or Consequences' was produced in New Mexico from 1993 to 2000. His photo series are both quotations and homages to famous photographers of everyday American life: Walker EVANS, Edward WESTON, Robert FRANK and William EGGLESTON. The result is a body of work that alternates between the provincial and the private, between the gaze of others and his own perception. From 2008 to 2010 and in 2012 and 2013, he stayed in Israel. He photographed over 350 Jewish settlements in the West Bank and portrayed settler families, particularly immigrants from Great Britain, Canada, South Africa, Australia, the USA and the former Soviet Union. With the resulting work 'Settlement' he is part of the exhibition project initiated by Frédéric BRENNER about the complexity of Israel and the West Bank, called 'This Place'. Twelve internationally renowned photographers were involved, including Nick WAPLINGTON and Frédéric BRENNER himself: Wendy EWALD (USA), Martin KOLLAR (Slovakia), Josef KOUDELKA (Czech Republic), Jungjin LEE (South Korea), Gilles PERESS (France), Fazal SHEIKH (USA), Stephen SHORE (USA), Rosalind SOLOMON (USA), Thomas STRUTH (Germany) and Jeff WALL (Canada).

Photo books by and with works by Nick WAPLINGTON (a selection)

• 'Living Room' (1991, with lyrics by Richard AVEDON and John Berger); 'Other Edens' (1994); 'The Wedding' (1996, with lyrics by Irvine Welsh); 'Safety In Numbers' (1997); 'The Indecisive Momento' (1998); 'Safety by Numbers' (2000); 'Truth or Consequences A Personal History of American Photography from the Last Century' (2001); 'You Love Life' (2005); 'Double Dactyl' (2007); 'Learn how to Die the Easy Way' (2007); 'The Patriarch's Wardrobe' (2012); 'Alexander McQueen: Working Process' (2013); 'Settlement' (2014); 'Made Glorious Summer' (2014); 'This Place' (2014, together with works by Frédéric BRENNER, Wendy EWALD, Martin KOLLAR, Josef KOUDELKA, Jungjin LEE, Gilles PERESS, Fazal SHEIKH, Stephen SHORE, Rosalind Fox SOLOMON, Thomas STRUTH as well as by Jeff WALL); 'We Live As We Dream. Alone' (2015); 'Cunt Away' (2015); 'The Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: New York City 1989-1993' (2016); 'Neither a salt Spring Nor a Horse' (2018); ' The Search for a Superior Moral Justification for Selfishness' (2019); 'Comprehensive' (2023);

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