Relics of a lost era

Mike Nelson: The asset stripper
Tate Britain, London, UK
18 March – 6 October 2019

We visited Tate Britain recently and came across the installation currently on display in the Duveen Galleries by Mike Nelson. He has transformed this space—originally conceived as the first purpose-built sculpture galleries in England—into what feels like an objects stripper’s warehouse, using a host of industrial relics from recent decades.

Nelson has gathered objects from post-war Britain, things he remembers from his childhood: large knitting machines, old NHS doors, and other industrial ephemera. These items line the central corridor of the Tate known as the Duveen Galleries, creating a striking monument to a lost era and the vision of society it once represented. The installation resonates on both cultural and social levels, moving from local memory to national reflection.

The artist has been collecting these metal objects at asset-stripping auctions for years. Some of the machines are the very equipment once used in textile factories where Nelson’s parents and grandparents worked. Yet now, removed from their original context, they appear mysterious, almost as if plucked from a distant culture. At first, I thought they had been imported from an old British colony. They evoke the labor-intensive work behind the clothes we wear—once carried out in Western factories, now largely outsourced overseas. Is this really a sustainable model? I believe the fashion industry urgently needs to embrace upcycling. Below, you can see a photo of the knitting machine.

Further along, swing doors with porthole windows evoke an old London hospital, a liminal space between the living and the dead, adding to the surreal atmosphere. Some of Nelson’s works even speak directly to the museum’s collection. One piece, a series of hay rakes spinning like sunflowers, recalls the early surrealism of Joan Miró. You can see The art blackberry interacting with the piece—surrendering to sleep and perhaps dreaming alongside those massive sunflower wheels.

Nelson’s sculptures play with the industrial life of metal. He lets objects exist first as relics, second as sculptures, and again as machines, imbuing them with a strange, renewed presence that makes us see them in a completely new light.

Mike Nelson is a contemporary British artist known for large-scale architectural installations. He has been shortlisted twice for the Turner Prize and represented Britain at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

I am very fond of the pictures we took when interacting with these artworks. I hope you enjoy them too!