- Venue
- Matts Gallery
- Location
- London
Stepping through the large white double doors, the viewer is immediately submerged within the detritus of a seemingly post apocalyptic landscape contained within the familiar white cube space setting. Weaving through this detached (and actually highly surreal) setting, on first inspection the ground appears littered with the scattered remnants of contemporary society and structured debris of a familiar civilisation. There is a familiarity to the scene, perhaps due to the echoes of scarred dystopic fantasies reminiscent in films such as The Terminator and Mad Max and the ritualistic mysteries of The Blair Witch Project or The Wickerman.
So what does the scrapyard landscape that is unveiled before the viewer reveal? Thinking on the title it perhaps references Balzac’s The Unknown Masterpiece which has been dubbed a ‘fairytale of modern art’ by various sources. The literal shifting perspectives and viewpoints of the viewer reveal what are at once constructed abstractions and at others living sentient human forms. The viewer therefore can only partially sense one aspect of reality embedded in individual sculptures which echo the sentiments of the main characters in Balzac’s aforementioned novella when all they can see amidst a wall of paint is the beautifully composed foot rather than the Venus like beauty crafted by a maddened Frenhofer. Nelson in a sense has also created a type of life in the chaos, but only if the viewer knows how to look.
This is an exhibition that rewards time spent in its captive aura. The aura does feel fainter than in previous works such as The Coral Reef (of which a version was presented at Tate Britain as well as Matt’s Gallery.) In that work the allure of mystery and sinister atmosphere contributed to a more complete immersiveness much like in a well crafted video game such as Alone in the Dark or the later Resident Evil franchise. However, even without the winding tunnel like structures evident in The Coral Reef, the atmosphere of loneliness and the ritual still very much lingers in this current open plan work. Some of the pieces draw from a tribal or shamanistic aesthetic for which Nelson is well known, decorated with odd everyday trinkets such as feathers, pens, nails and dice. They bring to mind the early dreamy compositions of illustrator Dave McKean whose collages resonated with the content of the Sandman series of comics. Other individual sculptures in this work appear as if emaciated creatures struggling for survival after the Winter. They appear savage and disturbed by the viewer’s presence, their skulls almost salivating at the prospect of a fresh kill with a menacing life much beyond a mere nod to a static Duchampian ready-made.
Other pieces take on a more symbolic tone, for example punctuated with parts of an Arabic script which suggests an oriental exoticism and yearning for far off cultures. Yet they strangely ground the work in the familiar everyday, as these very same symbols are very much prevalent in the Britain of today and the East side of London where Matt’s Gallery is located. In fact, these fragments, like the Rosetta Stone (itself merely copies of an ancient decree in their original usage though made famous for their services to Etymology) there is a duality between an exotic formalist appreciation of the object and the actual reality of its mundane everyday usage. There is also the humour that runs throughout all the entities themselves from the plaster skull smiley faces to the felled construction worker holding an ‘M’ and the accompanying piece with the ‘N’ (Perhaps Mike Nelson’s initials?) Another example is the tyre that looks like the symbol for infinity even though it is well past its prime. It’s this knife edge between one tension and another opposite one that Nelson does so well and makes the work so apposite.
Above all it is an attention to detail that is at the heart of his works and keeps the viewer searching for the cultural, anthropological and artistic clues in his works which ultimately coerces the viewer from being passive spectator into an active investigatory participator incorporating their own belief systems into this rich and highly complex tapestry.
On a final note. There is a beautifully curated element to the show as a whole as just next door the work of Susan Hiller resonates gracefully with Nelson’s work and whilst aesthetically appears as of a different timeline or generation explores a complex synergy between material, ideas, mysticism and anthropology.
