“We’re united in our love of Keith Haring,” says DJ and musician Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, of his friendship with photographic artist Mark Vessey. While Cook’s admiration for the American pop artist and his graphic, cartoon-style imagery is evident in his vast collection of pop-culture ephemera, Vessey’s is more specific: one of his photographs depicts a colourful pile of Haring books. When the pair first met at Cook’s Hove home in 2018, “I had a stack of Keith Haring books that looked exactly like his picture,” says Cook. “We were like, this was meant to be.”
Norman’s Record Box by Mark Vessey © Jamie Salmons
Their initial meeting was arranged by Cook’s former wife, broadcaster Zoe Ball, who instantly recognised the pair’s mutual affinity for “old things”. It resulted in Norman, a photographic close-up of a tower of Cook’s records – an image that hangs on Cook’s living-room wall, and is now being republished in a 60cm x 60cm Dibond edition (£2,250) through Hang-Up Gallery. “It’s a bit like taking someone’s portrait,” says Vessey of the process. For Cook it was a way of “autobiographically cataloguing yourself through vinyl”.
Both revere pieces of pop culture that others throw away
