Mike Nelson
Mike Nelson came to prominence in the late 1990s, creating psychologically charged environments by sifting through the debris of modern life. His installations are expansive dominions for assemblages of cultural detritus, often referencing specific works of literature and countercultural or failed political movements. Working with figures and materials on the fringes of society, Nelson asks his viewers to spend time inhabiting worlds that, while foreign on the surface, reveal intrinsic truths and modes of thought that affect even the most basic cultural activities. His work has been widely shown and collected by, amongst others, the Tate London and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Nelson lives and works in London.
For MAW23, Mike Nelson is exhibiting a version of one of his early fire encampment assemblages which often appear as careful adhoc motifs, in his immersive installation works.
Amnesiac Beach Fire, 1997 (remade 2023)
Amnesiac Beach Fire is built from the remains of a burnt-out beach fire. An archaeology of the unremarkable, it would seem, but the addition of flames from a wave-battered traffic cone compounds the mute representation of this primal moment in human development: the creation of fire. This is an object that depicts, but that does not deliver, light or heat.
Mike Nelson’s installations take the viewer on enthralling journeys into fictive worlds that eerily echo our own.
Constructed with materials scavenged from salvage yards, junk shops, auctions and flea markets, the immersive installations have a startling life-like quality.
Weaving references to science fiction, failed political movements, dark histories and countercultures, they touch on alternative ways of living and thinking: lost belief systems, interrupted histories and cultures that resist inclusion in an increasingly homogenised and globalised world.
Utterly transforming the spaces of the Hayward Gallery, the exhibition features sculptural works and new versions of key large-scale installations, many of which are shown here for the first time since their original presentations.
Image: Arnaud Mbaki/courtesy of the Southbank Centre and Hayward Gallery source: www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a43007206/the-lost-worlds-of-mike-nelson