Abstract
Exhibited in group exhibition, General Rehearsal
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
| Event | General rehearsal - Moscow Museum of Modern Art Duration: 26 Apr 2018 → 16 Sept 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Media: Wooden floorboards, artworksImpact: Over the past twenty years, Mike Nelson's work has centred on the transformation of narrative structure to spatial structure, and on the objects placed within them, immersing the viewer and agitating their perception of these environments. The narratives employed by the artist are not linear or teleological, but multi-layered, and often fractured to the extent that they could be described as a semblance of 'atmospheres', put together to give a sense of meaning.
For this display at the Whitechapel Galley, Nelson imagines returning works from some of the 20th century's greatest sculptors to an environment suggestive of an artist's studio, naturally lit under the gallery's skylight.
Nelson has chosen historic and contemporary figurative works by artists including Pawel Althamer, Louise Bourgeois, Constantin Brâncusi, Alberto Giacometti, Sherrie Levine, Henry Moore and Willem de Kooning. They will be displayed on a reclaimed wooden floor filling the space, leaving a metre wide walkway around the edge of the room, and shown as a mass of modelled figures on this common ground rather than on plinths or pedestals. Inspired by a Dieter Roth work, The Floor (Studio-floor from Mosfellsbaer, Iceland), (1973 -1992), Mike Nelson's sculptural installation is what he describes as a 'levelling of sorts, questioning how we look at objects'. Modern masterpieces such as Constantin Brâncusi's The First Cry (1917) dissolved the human form into elliptical shapes, and Alberto Giacometti's Femme Debout (1957) elongates a woman's body into abstraction. These will go on show alongside rarely seen Kota Reliquary Figures, unique wooden and metal African forms.
In the display, Nelson draws links between his own work and that of other artists by displaying works such as Pawel Althamer's Ognisko (Camp-fire) (2012), which depicts white figures observing a campfire created from plastic, metal and resin. Nelson identified the campfire as a recurring motif found in his own work at various stages in his career for example, Gang of Seven (2013), an installation made up of debris found on Vancouver beaches. Nelson also refers back to his own work More things (To the memory of Honoré de Balzac) (2013) a sculptural environment that hovered between the figurative and the abstract.
Institution: Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Keywords
- Art and design