Nickel Rocklen

a dissheveled curled phone book is spread open and encased in copper and nickel plating, a sculpture by ry rocklen
Ry Rocklen, Soft Cover A to Z, 2011, nickel- and copper-plated found phonebook, selling at Rago today, 10 Dec 2025 [update: for $1,700, a nice deal]

My incredibly chic landlady at business school used to compare something great to a nickel rocket. One time I asked her where that phrase came from, and she had no idea.

That has nothing to do with anything, really, except Ry Rocklen somehow nickel-plated a whole-ass phonebook, and it looks incredible.

It was kind of overshadowed by the massive trophy altar Rocklen showed it with at Untitled in 2011, but on its own, this feels like the more enduringly interesting object.

a set of bedsheets, folded as they came out of the package, and copper and nickel plated into a sculpture by ry rocklen, sits on a small square of concrete floor surrounded by a checkerboard of pink shag carpet squares
Ry Rocklen, Cover to Cover, 2010, nickel- and copper-plated sheets, via archive.org?? he really just let his domain name expire?

Rocklen also nickel- and copper-plated a set of sheets, and then shoes and stuff, all perhaps prelude to Charles Ray making a shiny metal version of him.