Oliver Payne: 'New Works'    Apr 14 - May 26, 2012

NANZUKA is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition of new works by British artist Oliver Payne (b. 1979). This exhibition will be Oliver Payne's first solo gallery exhibition.

After studying at the Kingston University Faculty of Art and Design in England, Oliver Payne began working in collaboration with Nick Relph during the late 1990s, together creating video and installation work based on skating, hardcore music, punk, graffiti, and other street culture. He has had an extraordinarily bright career as a young artist, together with Relph winning the Golden Lion award in the young artist category at the 50th Annual Venice Biennale (2003) and having exhibited their collaborative work in solo exhibitions at Kunsthaus Zürich (2004) and at the Serpentine Gallery in London (2006). In Japan, they have showcased their work at Art Tower Mito (Lonely Planet exhibition, 2004) and at the Yokohama Triennale (2008). In 2009, Payne and Relph moved on to work separately as solo artists, and Payne has since been creating work mainly around the subject of Japanese subcultures.

Oliver Payne's work takes that which we recognize as common knowledge within a world context, flattens it, and boldly shifts the angle to present us with a new vision. In the two-artist exhibition with Keiichi Tanaami at project space Studiolo in Zürich last November, he exhibited collages composed of a barrage of stickers designed after the Japanese video game DonPachi pasted onto images of Greek sculptures torn from the pages of an old art book. These collages express how symbolic violence in Japanese video games overwhelms and dominates icons that serve as the symbolic identity of Western civilization. In another interpretation, these pieces suggest that the standardized authority on art is, in truth, born from blind faith.

This exhibition will feature a new installation based on the theme of "camp". Since ancient times, we have built camps as a means to rest during the night while on a journey. We built fire to keep wild beasts away, took warmth from that fire, and cooked using that fire, actions which have become acts of leisure, and which also represent the breadth of human innovation. The camp built by Payne is, in a word, hardcore. An intimidating black tent covered in countless needles to prevent anyone from coming near; a concrete video game console; a canvas with climbing holds pasted onto it; all bizarrely presenting the boundary between "game brain" virtual reality-like thinking and our daily lives.

The artist will visit to Japan to make an appearance at the exhibition. There will be an opening reception with the artist in attendance on 4/14 (Sat) from 18:00.