Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons @ Hayward Gallery, London
And well, extinction can be fun. I relished this series of installations. Plus Hayward Gallery staff were super nice, informing calmly when you needed to queue and what was needed.
I didn’t know anything about the exhibition or Mike Nelson before I went. I’d just seen the picture of the sand and was intrigued. It reminded me of Anthony Gormley at the Royal Academy of Arts. There was an amazing maze-like installation of connected rooms, with creaky doors which led you up, down and around, and covered different cultures too. One room was about voting and had a ‘gun’ as a door handle, which I didn’t even want to go near. If you headed the right way you could climb up some steps and peek out at the queue. There are also bits of almost abandoned belongings on top. What will be our legacy, what are we leaving behind? There were a couple of booking offices, a bar, bedrooms, a room full of torn up bits of rag, a Marilyn Room and something Latin American looking, like a Day of the Dead shrine, Hong Kong themes, and abandoned cigarettes. It reminded me of the concept of Denis Severs’ House, only modern. Intriguing, curious and using storytelling to great effect, very theatrical and yet disturbing too — where are all the people, what has become of them? The disorientation is thrilling — are doors sealed or will they open? What will industrial fridge like doors lead into? If you are not trapped circulating this exhibit for many hours, like Alice in Wonderland (!) you can go onto to see other works…
One room has old industrial machinery lifted up like statutes or pillared monuments. There is even a work desk which mimics the Shoah with piles of rusted nails heaped up, abandoned tools and work wear, decaying, missing their owners. It both mourns and commemorates the dead industrial industries, the dead and dying heavy industries, the lost workers — tools and machinery which are no longer used. Agricultural machinery had been placed to mimic Van Gogh and whirl beautifully, flaring like sunflowers or suns.
In another room, lit by harsh red light, doors and items are heaped up. It’s compelling and absorbing to see door upon door, piles of wood, jumbles of tools, pipework and furniture, even curved ship like carvings (though they are another kind of architectural decoration). Again as you wander round (and beware of tripping over the art!) we contemplate what we leave behind, sense our own immortality, time passing and how what once was necessary has become irrelevant or no longer needed. What are we valuing? There’s some beautiful wrought ironwork and the shadowy mishmash of stuff tells its own stories as you peer and scurry in-between the shelves. Whilst it could just sound like an arty IKEA, it’s so compelling and I loved it!
My least favourite work were iron cages with concrete heads skewered to them — at points the heads turned into creatures and even clowns or monsters. Whilst there was a lot to look at, I found it disengaging and disturbing really. I couldn’t work out what to connect with, or what it was telling me. Again it reminded me of Anthony Gormley, but Kwame Akoto-Bamfo has done it much better in terms of sculping concrete heads for purpose. Was it evolution? Was it really bizarre workshop art? (The heads seem to enter into states of decay at points)…
More exciting was entering a tunnel under a sand dune strewn with decomposing tyres. Part Dune, part Star Wars and part Dust Belt chic, you ended up in a red lit workshop — maybe a photographic studio as there was a giant magnifying glass and photos hung all across the ceiling (out to dry?) A further section led onto a barn or outhouse filled with sand and rusting can of oil/petrol. A sad statement on how our production and consumption is killing ourselves and our environment — take heed, take care it seemed to shout. It was a real warning. Also beware of the door in as the space is narrow and if you screech to a halt in wonder infront of it then you can get whacked as others enter in. This door does not feature the signature creak so beloved of the artist everywhere else.
Furthermore, another visually striking exhibition was a case of works devoted to veterans of the Gulf War, their PTSD and America in general, told through objects. The vest with the Kuwait Will Be Free badge made me gasp — I didn’t expect that. There were wooden guns, a wooden motorcycle made out of the most unlikely bike items, including horns and an eagle walking stick, badges, newspapers (financial sections it looked like), war comics. Somehow it was intimate and humanised veterans and their memories (and their service). At the same time it was sad too.
Last of all was a replica artist’s studio with a film playing of mock-up conspiracy theories — beware what you believe, read, hear and see? Is it trustworthy, is it true? Is this art (all the headless dolls and toy torsos awaiting repair and all the books) or is this artist about to go storm the Capitol driven by crazy online reasonings? Don’t be a consumer, be a thinker with actual facts and knowledge. At the same time the studio was beautiful — an object of detailed work and deep thinking. We are invited to contemplate not only our legacy, what we leave behind, but what we lose as as society and work changes, is it progress? What about the people? And what are we believing and trusting it — are we just consuming passively or are we making sure that we are not fueling conspiracies and believing madness?
The Guardian review is informative, as I enjoyed the adventure of the interconnecting rooms and missed the details — Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons; David Hockney: Bigger and Closer — review | Art | The Guardian (I wasn’t always sure what I was looking at!)
