Below is an account of projects undertaken by Nathaniel Pitt through various artist-run and commercial galleries. (2008-2022-) Some of the projects were funded by Arts Council England and/or by the sale of editioned prints, which are available upon request.
2008
Worcester is home to The Berrow’s Worcester Journal, arguably the longest-running continually published newspaper, dating from 1690 to the present. Fascinated by this disputed fact, I contacted the newspaper and proposed a project to highlight its historical significance.
Around the same time, I had been invited to Liverpool as a delegate for an initiative exploring artist-run spaces across the UK during its tenure as City of Culture. My proposal was to visit each UK city and exchange a Worcester Berrow’s Journal for their local paper—the Liverpool Echo seemed the obvious first swap.
The Berrow’s Journal ran a front-page feature, and I took this framed copy to The Royal Standard, an independent artist-led space in Everton, where I exchanged it for a copy of the Echo with director Jim Buso. I believe it still hangs in their office today.1
Nat Pitt with Royal Standard director Jim Buso echanging city newspapers
A silly idea, perhaps, and that's as far as it went. But the idea of exchange remains fertile ground, and I’m currently researching the oldest newspapers in the US, Italy, and Germany.
Fast forward to 2013: I paid £960 + VAT for a four-page advertising wrap—front page, double-page spread, and back page. I invited the artist Robert Barry to contribute an artwork for the cover and create a limited edition print to help fund future editions. He agreed.
Nat Pitt with Robert Barry signing 1/50 +15AP Est1690#1 upstairs at Gasser Grunert Gallery 52W 19th St New York September 2013
I met Robert and his assistant at the multi-stacker car park on 10th Avenue in New York—his regular garage when commuting from Teaneck, New Jersey. He noted, “They’ve been stacking cars here since the 1920s.”
After lunch, his assistant left us. During a gallery visit, Robert got into an argument with a gallery director (who shall remain nameless), insisting they owed him money. I suspect Robert used my presence as a kind of ‘heavy.’
Later, we met collectors Françoise and Jean-Philippe Billarant at Klemens Gasser’s residency space on 52W and 19th Street. Robert was slightly annoyed that the screenprint layer wasn’t opaque enough to fully obscure the lithograph beneath, but he was ultimately pleased. Interestingly, the first ten or so prints were signed upside-down.
In return for his participation, Robert received fifteen artist proofs—two of which he gifted to Klemens and the Billarants. While signing, I admired his grey pencil with a white eraser, embossed in silver with “Bobby Barry.” It had been a gift from Sol LeWitt, who had made them for other Seth Siegelaub gallery artists in 1969—Laurence Weiner (“Larry”), Douglas Huebler (“Dougie”), Joseph Kosuth (“Joe”). Robert gave me his pencil.
Back in Worcester, it became clear I couldn’t publish the artwork without the newspaper’s masthead, so I decided to place Robert’s work on the back page. I then invited three other artists to share the spread:
-
Chris Shaw Hughes, introduced by Professor Matthew Cornford, who creates drawings from sites of trauma.
-
Elizabeth Rowe (Birmingham), whose media interventions obscure and enhance existing print imagery.
- Candice Jacobs (Nottingham), who created a site-specific work referencing Kays, a now-defunct catalogue company and once one of Worcester’s biggest employers.
The paper was released on Thursday, 28 February 2013, under the pseudo-headline: TORNADO HITS WORCESTER: 94 DEAD, 1000 INJURED, printed over a charcoal drawing of a tornado strike.
It’s hard to believe the editor approved it; I later heard there were many complaints. In fact, the Worcester referenced was actually Worcester, Massachusetts—struck by a deadly tornado in 1953. At the time, I hadn't fully considered the ethical implications for the citizens of either city.
Yet the press itself is not inert—it’s salacious, provocative, and headline-driven. Artist Chris Shaw Hughes explores these dynamics: our obsession with trauma and the macabre.
“Tornado-gate” wasn’t the only controversy. The Worcester Berrow’s Journal received a copyright infringement notice regarding Candice Jacobs' appropriation of the Kays logo. She had photocopied it repeatedly, degrading the image—a comment on the loss of industry and changing commercial systems.
The paper connected me with the family who still held the rights. After I explained that the work was not a critique of the company but a commentary on capitalism and obsolescence, they graciously understood our intent: to honour a local institution and the people it once employed.
Michael Hampton later wrote an article titled Est. 1690 for the October edition of Art Monthly. 2
Est.190 by Michael Hampton pp.37
2014
The second edition of Est. 1690 was released on Thursday, 18 September 2014, supported by Arts Council England as part of a programme of exhibitions with Division of Labour, Worcester.
I invited Victor Burgin to produce a cover artwork. He submitted two fictional texts, which were combined into one. I also asked if he would contribute a limited edition print (as per our model), produced at our cost and exchanged for earlier prints in the series.
Victor agreed to a lithograph in an edition of 90—stamped by Division of Labour—but insisted it be considered a souvenir poster, not signed or numbered.
This edition puzzled many of the 41,000 recipients of the Berrow’s Journal, with some calling in to ask what was being advertised.
Most complaints came in response to a shared page by artists Nicole Mortiboys and Chris Hodson. Nicole submitted a digital printing error message: Order JEK1 1639375 contained 1 corrupt image. A delight to the “grammar police” among the readership, known to the editorial team.
-
Page 2: Featured “O.K.” by David Blamey, an RCA design lecturer. I had first encountered it at The Happy Hypocrite: Say What You See (Eastside Projects, 2011), where I performed a re-enactment based on Bruce Nauman’s Tate Modern audio works.
- Page 3: Featured Objectless Expansion by Jeremy Hutchison, coinciding with a Division of Labour exhibition of the same title at Worcester Art Gallery and Museum.
2015
The third Est. 1690 edition was produced during a difficult period: I was hospitalised due to complications from an old football injury.
Fittingly, Gavin Wade contributed Society Falls Apart, featuring an exploding Dymaxion map. Designed by James Langdon, it was a rallying call for action.
That edition also featured:
-
Inside cover: Henrik Schrat
-
Inside back: Plastique Fantastique
- Back cover: Oliver Tirré, a recent Nottingham graduate
Exploded Support Structure for a Dymaxion Map, 2015.
Worcester Royal Hospital, the amazing NHS, fresh copy of Est. 1690 #3 delivered Thursday 22 October 2015
2019
After a hiatus while I established Division of Labour in London and toured the art fair circuit, Series 4 launched on Thursday, 10 January 2019, to coincide with the opening of The Art House in Worcester. I had just taken a 0.4 post in Fine Art Research and Teaching at the University.
The theme was portraiture. Gavin Wade and I co-curated P is for Portrait.
Gavin Wade (2017) On loan from a Private Collection
For the centre spread, I approached John Ahearn and Rigaberto Torres. I had hoped to include a cast sculpture, but the works were unavailable and shipping costs were prohibitive. Instead, the front cover featured ‘Photo Therapy: Self-Portrait’ (1986-88) collaboration with Rosy Martin © The Estate of the Artist, courtesy of Richard Saltoun Gallery, London
The Final Project - Metamorphosis, 1992 Collaboration with Terry Dennett
Set of 4 black and white photographs. Posthumous Each: 62 x 45,5 cm, 36 x 46 cm, 32 x 46 cm, Edition of 1
2020
Series 5 of Est.1690 was delivered on Thursday, 29 October 2020—two days before the UK’s second COVID lockdown.
It coincided with Council of Voices, a solo exhibition by Vanley Burke in The Art House windows.
-
The edition featured cover, insert and back cover with images from Vanley Burkes home in Hansworth Birmingham and a bespoke text by Reah Dillon3
The lockdown enabled close remote collaboration with freelance curator Koye Obajiemi, he curated Pressing4 for Division of Labour including work by Reah Dillon.
2022
To coincide with the exhibition PULP—centred on books, learning, and text-based art—I commissioned:
- The Artist Taxi Driver (front cover)
- Richard Dean Hughes (centre spread)
- Angelina May Davis (back cover)
For the first time, the editor refused to print our submission: a black-and-white painted text over a Daily Mail front page, reading Where Does Hate Come From?, calling it “too pessimistic.”
We offered a painted gammon steak instead. To my surprise, this was accepted—despite it being a stereotype of an angry, privileged, middle-aged white man (a common figure in media discussions on Brexit and welfare).
Where Does Hate Come From?
(2022) The Artist Taxi Driver
(censored by Worcester News)
n.
Gammon (2022) The Artist Taxi Driver (
self-censored by curator) [me]
o.
WE ARE ALL A SMALL PART OF THIS (2022)
The Artist Taxi Driver, final cover for Est.1690 #5
I ultimately pulled the image just before going to print, concerned about protected characteristics around age and race. I don't believe the work was racist—rather, a social comment on The Daily Mail’s perceived readership. Both myself and The Artist Taxi Driver fit that demographic—albeit with different frustrations.
We instead featured one of his watercolours; We Are All a Small Part of This
PEACE!
1. Extract
Among the delegates at the weekend was Nathaniel Pitt, of Worcester, who was selected to work with two Liverpool studios, The Royal Standard and Red Wire. As a part of the event, the delegates were also asked to prepare an artwork, and Mr Pitt chose a performance project where he exchanged a copy of Worcester’s Berrow’s Journal – the oldest continuous newspaper in the world from 1690 – with a copy of the ECHO.
He said: “I have visited Liverpool many times before and I have always been enchanted by the calls of the ECHO salesman. “I am currently working on a art project, where I visit each UK city and exchange a paper from the last city I have visited. I also want to go round the country recording the chorus of calls of paper sellers.”
2. Extract:
'Est. 1690', a projec t devised by Pitt Studios which operates from an address in Worcester and its sister gallery, Division of Labour, based in Malver, commissioned four artists, Robert Barry, Candice Jacobs, Chris Shaw Hughes and Elizabeth Rowe, to generate an advertising wrap for the 28 February 2013 edition of Berrow's Worcester Journal, a stalwart local newspaper, allegedly the oldest in the world still in circulation. The front-page splash by Hughes, with its headline Tornado Hits Worcester' above a blurry aquarelle-type image of a black twister wreaking havoc, goes back to the future, as the event being recalled here is a lethal tornado of 1953, in Worcester, Massachusetts. But ironically the theme of anomalous, aka Fortean weather is now absolutely cutting edge, since the UK's penchant for weather chit-chat has lately gone viral with drought, flooding and abnormal snowfall constituting a topsy-turvy scene across the country.
Regardless of whether this so-called weirding proves the global warming hypothesis, something is most definitely awry with our climate, and Hughes's response, with its strapline of *94 Dead 1000 Injured, touches a nerve. Frankly, it was a bold move by Pitt Studios to interrupt the 323-year-old DNA of Berrow's with such a misleading cover story.
Posting a copy to every household within the city limits of Worcester (an edition of 41,112), was blitzkrieg of a particular kind, a 'delivery dérive' to quote the project website - a liberal use of the Situationist term it must be said - and a neat way to put the space firmly on the map. However, not everyone was happy with their junk freebie, as organiser Nathaniel Pitt revealed in an update: The newspaper received some complaints about the work but they have not yet shared them with me.
And I received a Breach of Copyright notice from the heritage owners of the Kays brand; ‘I have resolved this issue with an apology as curator and we might work on a future heritage project; a welcome silver lining to Pitt's makeover. The tone of the supporting statement for 'Est. 16go' on the PS/DOL website is defiant, too, as if pre-empting likely criticism of the ploy by highlighting the condition of the provincial paper qua endangered species, making the intervention a form of emergency treatment: The printed press industry is in a fragile state. Local, regional, national and international papers are folding under the strain of news on demand and the network of internet based news, rolling news channels and social media deliver the news faster than print can follow.
Inside, on page 2, Rowe's drawing Suit Yourself, 2013, provides a colourful contrast to the fare within: coverage of debatable planning decisions, charity walks, a centenarian's advice to 'never give up', plus a 48-page property supplement etc. Her labour-intensive act of overwriting has a loopy quality that sets it apart from the primary narrative function of Berrow's, and indeed most newspapers, a graphic account of her state of mind accomplished with the skilled exuberance of Adolf Wölfi, its antisocial naughtiness effacing the original advert - a grid of Miramax DVDs - beneath aboriginal dots, lines, scribbles and smears. Lastly, veteran US conceptualist Barry's contribution has finesse: a tangle of outlined paratactical words such as PASSION, LOOK, CHANGE! infilled with teasing print samples from an ordinary newspaper page.
This design prohibits the normative act of reading that a consumer of Berrow's might expect to enjoy, taking us beyond the confines of the quotidian into a ludic realm. Indubitably the strategies of the four artists in 'Est 1690' - hoaxing, archiving, erasure and shuttering, if not the means of the paper's transubstantiation - do cause a stir, a valid disturbance of tradition and memory since, as John Roberts in The Intangibilities of Form - Skill and Deskilling in Art after the Readymade has noted,
'recycling and appropriation of images and texts involves a continuous process of negotiation with the dominant culture as a way of keeping open the channels of democracy. Now hold that thought.
©Michael Hampton, Art Monthly
3. Extract:
Your chest looked smooth to the touch as if hair had never heard of skin.
An unholy you. A stolid sealed unit like an armour of moulded sheeting.
Large black shades continued your desire for a pretense of protection. Had you not been hiding your whole life?
Do you not know a you by now? Does it ever reach
Homoerocity peeked out of your trousers in white and blue flannel. A flag I cherish to see you display with subtle honour. It would be a lie to say you've changed but a glow now you most definitely possess. I thought of your Scottish mother and how everyone loved to hear her laugh. Bellow: a deep unfolding of pure joy. A word made for her sonic warfare. How did you all get up there, I never knew. Tip of the berg. Cream of the crop. Survivors of the fittest. Finding any land for a mother to land is the street's fundamental goal. I wished you'd stayed with us in the metropolis. But you always went where the grass was green.
We: had a dream you would make it on the stage one day.
Here: you rest tall and proud.
I would have loved to see you but I'm glad you selling out shows now to spread your message whatever the message far and wide. Take up space. Take up so much space that, excised, your joints snap at the swelling of your soul. A brown coming on. And come on, private concerts for the queen? Man. Behold a you. Crew still running a muck in the green room though. You cannot take the hood out of some. We rejoice at the thought. The word hood itself always felt exterior to me. Much like the clothing I attempted to shake off in the heat of it all. You, you got caught in the heat of it all. Cut to a balding. A new round to be shined. Those born of the (global) south will always be cold in the west no matter the temperature. These walls weren't built to help those like us find comfort. So, take up space. So much space that the wind is beneath your wings, cheeks, thighs, the belly of your gastrocnemius...
But don't let your guard down. Now you live in an immortal plastic: stiff chocolate. Waiting for me to harden / to smother. This longing is enough. If seeing is a test then I have failed it. I can no longer see past the fetal position I chose to carry.
Will you retrain to take the fetal in the afterlife, or hope for a king size casket? Who will pay for that? The sinners or those who know not of sin? They're liars. Both of them. But not us. We stayed the same. When I say we I call myself into the piece. A cold we' shouldn't exist. It doesn't, not in this world. But we know why ants are so nosy:
'I miss your flesh'
"I miss your bones"
©Rhea Dillon
4. Extract:
Rhea Dillon, Peter Spanjer, Oscar yi Hou
Curated by Koye Odejinmi
pressing
pressing as in urgent
pressing as in getting to the core of things
pressing as in squeezed to within an inch of its life
pressing as in leaving a mark
pressing as in the click of a button
pressing as in continuing on the long open road to resolution
Project Brief