Contemporary British installation artist Mike Nelson has transformed the grand spaces of the Duveen Galleries at the Tate Britain into ‘something between a sculpture court and an asset strippers’ warehouse.’
Carefully selecting objects from the post-war Britain that framed his childhood, visitors can walk between enormous knitting machines, upended telegraph poles, graffitied steel awnings and doors from an NHS hospital.
Nelson, who has twice been nominated for the Turner Prize, said arranging the items in the gallery “subtly shifts them from what they once were into sculpture, and then back again to what they are — examples of the machines and equipment left over from industry and infrastructure.”
He added: “The exhibition weaves this allusion with that of British history. It presents us with a vision of artefacts cannibalised from the last days of the industrial era in place of the treasures of empire that would normally adorn such halls.” [—]
The Guardian gave the exhibition a 5 star review, concluding:
There are the dead machines, so powerfully revived, so beautifully fashioned in their own right: sculptural in their torsions, curves and volumes.
There are the traces of those who worked them – the fingerprints and the scribbled numbers, the patina on crankshaft and handle, burnished with the workers’ daily touch.
Grinders, pumps, mills, drills and spindles, these creations were made to create what we ate and used and wore for so long, and perhaps even to mix the paints in the art around us at Tate Britain.
Every element is a sculpture in its own right, down to the smallest bulldog of a mechanism; together they form a unique monument to British history.
Here’s a selection of photos from my recent visit. The exhibition continues until 6th October 2019.
Tate Britain info
The Asset Strippers runs until 6th October 2019
Duveen Galleries
Millbank, London SW1P 4RG
Plan your visit
Opening hours:
Sunday 10am–6pm
Monday 10am–6pm
Tuesday 10am–6pm
Wednesday 10am–6pm
Thursday 10am–6pm
Friday 10am–6pm
Saturday 10am–6pm
Admission: Free
www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-britain
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Tate Modern Tanks and Switch Room – and a wonderful audio installation
Tate Modern photos: Huge chairs, a crying room, the Clock, a heat sensitive floor and more, Oct 2018
PsychoBarn installation by Cornelia Parker at the Royal Academy, London, Nov 2018
A walk around the West End: street art, signs, galleries and a busking drummer – in photos, Jan 2019
A tower of 800 whispering radios: Cildo Meireles’ Babel at the Tate Modern, London
And “Honest Joe” Duveen would have sold it all to Mellon and Frick as genuine Italian renaissance artifacts! (See Colin Simpson’s “Artful Partners,” one of the best books ever written, regardless of subject).
I’m not much into art but would go and see that. Excellent. He has a ‘Wadkin’ machine, I visited many factories that had those. No doubt all closed now.