“Everything that has happened is happening now” was Nick Waplington’s slogan for his previous book Safety in Numbers. Ringing true once again, the contemporary British photographer and artist has just released an expansive and timely survey book from Phaidon charting his 40-year-career, and its aptly entitled Comprehensive.
Coined as “a rare kind of cultural portraiture, a personal register of personalities, subtly limning the politics and poetics of the circumstantial”, in a review by critic and curator, Carlo McCormick, Waplington’s work is perpetually human. From family living rooms to sticky night clubs, settlements in Israel to the anarchy of Californian beachside surf protests, Waplington’s images show humanity in all its rawness.
Nick Waplington. Comprehensive. Introduction by Simon Baker. Phaidon
Beginning as a 14-year-old who stumbled upon his school’s darkroom and the wonders discoverable within, his enduring eye for ephemeral moments in human life has catapulted the photographer to prominence across the globe, exhibiting at galleries like Tate Britain, Guggenheim in NYC, the V&A and more. Catching the eye of Richard Avedon when he audited a class at the Royal College of Art – which he later attended – Avedon became a kind of mentor to a young Waplington.
Kicking off his formidable career with the release of an acclaimed photobook called Living Room, in 1991 – which explores domesticity and familial connection in Nottingham, England, in the late 80s through portraits of two close-knit families – Waplington steered away from the grainy blacks and whites of analogue image-making, capturing the families in a cinematically arranged (almost Wes Anderson-esque) series of compositions. This filmic quality he would emulate throughout his career, capturing every corner of life from designer like Alexander McQueen and Gucci or, more strangely, a small town in New Mexico named Truth or Consequences. He also released the book Isaac Mizrahi Pictures: New York City in 2016, seamlessly bring together both New York’s nightlife and the designer in question’s effervescent runways.
From left: Nick Waplington. The Day You Die Will Be Like Any Other Only Shorter. Drawings and Sketchbooks, 1995-2022 (page 345), and Nick Waplington. Trumpkin Donuts. Drawings and Sketchbooks, 1995-2022 (page 354).
With Comprehensive – his 21st tome – Waplington pulls from his own, various lines of work to include recognisable imagery as well as never-before-seen photographs. The monograph’s colourful sleeve throws you into the movement of a family’s living room pulled from his first release, while the hardback underneath is bound by glossy burgundy with gold typography. Over 400 perfectly presented pages then flicker between unfiltered moments of chaos and calm – adding a pulse of life or “messy humanness” as the description coins it.
Bringing a different visual language to his work, the tome includes Waplington’s other specialist mediums, including painting, his sketchbooks and zines. Between double-page-spreads charting human lived experiences, a vivid piece of art poignantly states, “the day you die will be like any other, only shorter.”
Rather than a formal retrospective, the director of White Columns, Matthew Higgs, describes Comprehensive as “an open ended conversation across time, a visual record of the unexpected pleasures of life and a desire to capture.”
With a foreword by Simon Baker, a former senior curator at Tate Modern and now the director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (it’d be remiss not to note that Waplington himself, similarly wrote the foreword for fellow-photographer – and 10 Magazine contributor – Dan Boulton’s book, Paris Youth) Comprehensive shows Waplington’s enduring curiosity and genuine commitment to the people he portrays under a new light, whether he’s painting, writing or clicking the shutter button on his camera. “Each gives a sense of permanent creativity, but also a relentless restlessness, a drive to get ideas down quickly for later reflection and reuse, as well, importantly, allowing Waplington to circulate, share and discuss images and ideas directly with his audience,” writes Baker.
Waplington held a London launch and signing of ‘Comprehensive’ at The Photographer’s Gallery on October 13. Buy your copy here. Photography by Nick Waplington. ‘Nick Waplington: Comprehensive’ is published by Phaidon, £69.95, Phaidon.com
From left: Nick Waplington. Untitled. Living Room, 1986-90 (pages 14-15). Nick Waplington. Untitlled. Living Room, 1986-90 (pages 38-39). Nick Waplington. Untitled. Weddings, Parties, Anything, 1990-4 (pages 130- 131). Nick Waplington. Untitled. Hackney Riviera, 2018 (pages 398-399).
