A retrospective of Mike Nelson’s work might seem like an impossible task. The British artist has spent the last three decades creating works assembled from materials gathered from junkyards, flea markets, online auctions, even street-corner fly tips, then building them into labyrinthine sculptural environments that suggest fictional (often science-fictional) narratives, while alluding to diverse histories and current affairs.
They’re dense, absorbing, atmospheric, and often claustrophobic – complete experiences in themselves. Plus, many of them effectively cease to exist once the exhibition is done; they’re dismantled and stored away, carefully labelled boxes of precious junk. So, the Hayward Gallery’s challenge, with this new survey exhibition, was to reflect Nelson’s singular achievement without creating an endless, exhausting maze, while also avoiding reconstructions that felt like pastiches.
