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ARETXT : La Biennale di Venezia
MIKE NELSON
Nelson's large-scale sculptural installations immerse the viewer in an unfolding narrative which develops through a sequence of meticulously realised spatial structures. The weaving of fact and fiction are fundamental to Nelson’s practice, and his constructs are steeped in both literary and historic references, whilst drawing upon the geography and cultural context of their location. The exibition for thr British Pavilion follows the success of Nelson's first major solo presentation in Venice 2011. The Deliverance and the Patience, which was show within the context of the collateral programme at the 49° edition of the Biennale. On that occasion Nelson's installation comprised sixteen inter-connecting room and corridors built in a disused brewery on the Giudecca. The title reffered to two galleon ships which sailed from Bermuda to Virginia in the 17° century, and the work addressed such themes as parallel structures whitin society and time, the emergence of trade routes and their relationship to the founding of pirate utopian colonies. Throughout his career, Nelson has constantly returned to and re-examined territories within his own practice, and his new exhibition for the British Pavilion follows the success of his first major solo presentation in Venice in 2001, The Deliverance and the Patience, which was shown as part of the collateral programme at the 49th edition of the Biennale. For the British Pavilion in 2011, Nelson has elected to take as his starting point another of his own key works from the past decade, Magazin: Büyük Valide Han, originally built for the 8th International Istanbul Biennial in 2003. By relocating and re-working this earlier installation for Venice, Nelson has both created a link between the two former great mercantile centres of the east-west/west-east axes, and drawn upon his own histories with the cities and their respective biennials. Nelson has referred to Magazine: Büyük Valide Han as being a parasitical installation that had lodged itself into a 17° century building. Now, based on the photographic memory of a work he had made in a different city eight years before. Nelson has created a new installation for Venice. In part it mirrors the original, thougt not as a true reflection, but a re-building and re-imagining of another time and place. 'I consider myself a sculptor,' says Nelson, 'but to some extent I'm a product of that department and its history of installation work. Cornelia Parker was an MA student there, too. There was no sculpture department as such, but something called "the third area", which was basically film and installation. I came from school with a portfolio of drawings of badgers and bones. I had no idea. It was quite a revelation.' His degree show signalled much of what was to follow, formally and in terms of subject matter. It consisted of a 20ft by 8ft tent made of nylon webbing and stencilled with William Morris-style prints and what he calls 'Turkish drawings of the prophet praying and birds flying'. He constructed it outside on the campus grounds, and when the wind blew the images moved around as if projected on to the tent. 'It was 1990, and I was interested in the misrepresentation of other cultures even back then. That has been a recurring theme in the work. I made another piece back then that was a western copy of a Persian garden carpet into which I had bleached sickle moons and heads of the Ayatollah. Quite cartoon-like, as it happens. Probably be a bit contentious now.'
Curatori : Richard Riley Artisti : Mike Nelson
Web site :http://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/ |
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Artext © 2011 |