Nick Knight has dedicated his career to image making, spearheading technological developments in its evolution. Since the 1980s, the British photographer has worked for magazines such as Vogue, i-D and AnOther. He has also collaborated with cutting-edge designers including Alexander McQueen and Yohji Yamamoto, and created music videos with Björk and Massive Attack. More recently, he’s had an enduring presence in the gallery world, running his own exhibition space out of SHOWStudio HQ—a platform he launched in 2000 which pushes the boundaries of online fashion communication—and working closely with cultural institutions across the globe.
In 2024, he curated “Shadow-Ban” at SHOWStudio, exploring how online censorship suppresses creative expression. He has also embraced the power of A.I. and C.G.I., working with the Met’s team on their groundbreaking “Sleeping Beauties” exhibition, which brought archival clothing to life in unexpected ways.
Here, Knight looks back at his highlights from 2024, and shares his thoughts on the year ahead.
What moment or project stands out as a personal highlight of 2024?
‘Shadow Ban’, an exhibition about censorship that I curated at SHOWStudio. Because we open the whole space as a gallery, we were surrounded by fantastic art, from Miles Greenberg’s beautiful performance films to Pierre Molinier’s wonderfully perverse photography. The show extended into my office upstairs, so I got involved in a lot of conversations with strangers who came through. The topic of censorship in art is super important at the moment. To be able to talk to so many people about art and its effect was very stimulating.
What was the best show you saw in your local city in 2024?
“Sargent and Fashion” at Tate Britain. One arts journalist really took umbridge at the premise of the show and said that John Singer Sargent didn’t give a damn about fashion—but he did! It’s always been an important part of how we communicate who we are as a society. Fashion is much misunderstood in this country. I think it’s to do with our protestant-based culture that sees vanity as a sin. Michaela Stark’s live performance which closed the show was incredible, but people were asking how you could debase these great paintings by doing a fashion-based performance. She went on to do a performance at ‘Shadow Ban’ which was a response to the criticism.
Gallery View, Blurred Blossoms at ‘Sleeping Beauties’. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Tell us about the best show you saw abroad in 2024.
“Sleeping Beauties” at the Met, which we were heavily involved in. Andrew Bolton wanted to bring some of their dresses, which were 100 or 200 years old, back to life. We used C.G.I., 3D technology and A.I., scanning some of these dresses, laying them flat and photographing them. We were able to recreate the movement, the scent of the person wearing it. Our pleasure was being able to find a solution for museums to be able to show historical and contemporary fashion in a way that was immersive. I think it took our understanding of and interaction with fashion leaps and bounds into the future.
What are you looking forward to most in 2025?
I’m really looking forward to “Leigh Bowery!” at Tate Modern. He was such an important part of the London scene and the gay scene. I went to Taboo in the summer of 1985 and that whole world was incredible; they could have been put into the middle of the Surrealists or the Dadaists, they were very extreme people. Leigh’s had artistic recognition before, but it’s nice to see him get an exhibition at Tate.
Fergus Greer, Leigh Bowery Session 1 Look 2, 1988. © Fergus Greer. Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery.
If you could see one change in the art world next year, what would it be?
I think it’s so important that the art world doesn’t turn its back on A.I. Of course, it’s dangerous, but so was the invention of writing. If artists shun it, the only people really pushing it is the military and big business. It’s important to have people who care about art, culture and humanity leading it. A.I. is suffering from the same thing that photography suffered from when it started; it spent the first fifty years pretending to be painting. A.I. right now is pretending to be photography or filmmaking and it needs to find its own voice, which it will get through artists using it.
The only thing that needs to change: it is very easy for companies to work out the major percentages of images that have been used to create something with A.I. It’s fair that artists get some remuneration if someone has used their work. It needs to be acknowledged and that’s easy for platforms to do, they’re just choosing not to.
If you could go back in time, what is one piece of advice you would give yourself at this time last year?
See more art, buy more art, and take care of yourself. Charlotte [Knight’s wife] and I used to get home from SHOWStudio at 9pm and eat dinner after 10pm. It creates a lot of knock-on effects on your health. As artists we need our mental capabilities and our physical health. Photography is performance as much as anything else. By spending time looking after yourself, you function better as an artist.
Name one individual art professional you have your eye on for 2025, and why?
A Japanese artist Karyn Nakamura (@frog_spit_simulation). She is a very bright electronics student who has been working out how to recognise police brutality during protests, tracking their physical movements. We’re working together on a big exhibition at SHOWStudio next year. What she’s doing is just so different. We’re trying to make living art out of electronics. There’s no reason you can’t make art from living cells, the show will look at moving neurons around.