Artist angry at Condé Nast 'censorship' of exhibition

The publisher of the magazine that carries the name of Britain's leading galleries, Condé Nast, might have been expected to have a tolerant attitude to avant-garde art.

But the upmarket publishing giant found itself accused of censorship and strong-arm tactics yesterday after it stopped collages made from Vogue, its glossiest title, being put on show. The company, which also publishes Vanity Fair and GQ, recently took over as the publisher of Tate, the magazine of the Tate galleries read by 75,000 art-loving "pace setters and power-brokers".

The publishing house, which beat three competitors for the lucrative contract, said the topics covered by the magazine would "reflect a dynamic attitude towards art and artists in many fields". Its decision to turn down a request from the artist Graham Dolphin to exhibit his works, based on doctored copies of Vogue, at one of London's most popular venues, has therefore raised eyebrows.

Dolphin, 30, has based much of his art for the past five years on altering and manipulating the covers of glossy magazines. Among the works were a copy of Harpers & Queen covered in glitter, a front page of Vogue with the cover girl's face obscured by fur and a piece called Piss – an edition of the trendy Dazed & Confused soaked in urine and then dried out.

The technique was sufficiently eye-catching for the curators of Rapture, an exhibition showing at the Barbican in central London based on "art's seduction by fashion" to ask Dolphin to submit his work alongside luminaries of the Young British Artists movement including Tracey Emin and Marc Quinn. All seemed to be going well for Dolphin as he completed his 32 magazine covers for the show, until he approached Condé Nast for permission to use the Vogue covers. In an e-mail, Michael Garvin, the company's executive director at the time, said: "The reputation and goodwill built up in this title over many years as the world's leading fashion authority is the most valuable asset this company owns and we are not prepared to allow anyone to exploit it in an unauthorised way. It is our policy to follow up on unauthorised usage whether it be commercial or artistic with the assistance of our lawyers whenever necessary." Mr Garvin added: "I am sorry to stand in the way of artistic endeavour. I hope you will understand our reasoning."

Dolphin, who trained at a college in Bath, accused the company of double standards, claiming that none of the other magazines he had approached – i-D, Cosmopolitan, Elle, The Face, Marie Claire or Dazed & Confused – had objected.

The artist said: "It seems hypocritical. I don't think you can be both a publishing house that publishes a serious art journal and then censors artists by stopping them showing things that they don't like."

Chris Townsend, the curator of Rapture, said: "The threat [of legal action] made to Graham Dolphin was enough to dissuade us from using work based on Vogue."

A spokeswoman for the Tate, which pays Condé Nast a fee to produce its magazine and shares profits with the publisher, said: "We are not going to comment on decisions taken by Condé Nast in relation to their titles."