Mike Nelson: Amnesiac Hide
The Power Plant, 02/01/2014 - 05/19/2014
ABOUT
The Power Plant presents the first solo exhibition in Toronto of work by the renowned British artist Mike Nelson. Entitled Mike Nelson: Amnesiac Hide, the exhibition comprises the large-scale installation Quiver of Arrows (2010) and new significant commissions; including the sculptural work Gang of Seven, produced in partnership with The Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, and a new photographic work Eighty Circles through Canada (The Last Possessions of an Orcadian Mountain Man), produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery in association with the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff.
Nelson is best-known for his labyrinthine architectural installations that unfold as narrative structures, where the viewer moves through rooms like a reader turns pages in a novel. These immersive environments are often seemingly abandoned, devoid of figures, yet imagining the unseen occupants of these intricate spaces is central to the viewer’s experience. For instance, Nelson’s work Quiver of Arrows is constructed from four travel trailers soldered together to form an enclosed customized space that viewers may enter and explore. While the exterior of the trailers signify a distinctly North American design for leisure and travel, Nelson renders the vehicles inoperable, removing their wheels and sections of their bodies. Audiences navigate the interior of the work, passing through the rudimentary spaces of the 'wagons,' where objects and tableau suggest cultural and ideological others; perhaps these are the targets of what an idea of North American liberalism could suggest for the latent arrows in their quiver. Nelson's first interest in these once gleaming aluminum visions of the future was their resemblance to the early covered wagons of the first pioneers - not an unreasonable comparison when you realize that the oldest within the contruction dates back to 1939. Given the size and scope of this installation, The Power Plant is the second gallery to ever exhibit Quiver of Arrows.
In his new work for The Power Plant, Nelson revisits ideas and forms first seen inThe Amnesiacs, a serial project begun in 1996, which references a narrative involving an imaginary cast of characters — a group of ‘outsiders’ to the mainstream who uncannily resemble a disembodied late twentieth century biker gang, albeit without bikes. These quintessential outlaws of myth and literature, as depicted in the popular imagination of North America, are paralleled here with another favourite genre; that of the hunter or fur trader, exploring both groups’ economic underpinning of these romantic façades, and the resulting conflicts involved in the expansion of territory.
For More Information
The Power Plant presents the first solo exhibition in Toronto of work by the renowned British artist Mike Nelson. Entitled Mike Nelson: Amnesiac Hide, the exhibition comprises the large-scale installation Quiver of Arrows (2010) and new significant commissions; including the sculptural work Gang of Seven, produced in partnership with The Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, and a new photographic work Eighty Circles through Canada (The Last Possessions of an Orcadian Mountain Man), produced by the Contemporary Art Gallery in association with the Walter Phillips Gallery in Banff.
Nelson is best-known for his labyrinthine architectural installations that unfold as narrative structures, where the viewer moves through rooms like a reader turns pages in a novel. These immersive environments are often seemingly abandoned, devoid of figures, yet imagining the unseen occupants of these intricate spaces is central to the viewer’s experience. For instance, Nelson’s work Quiver of Arrows is constructed from four travel trailers soldered together to form an enclosed customized space that viewers may enter and explore. While the exterior of the trailers signify a distinctly North American design for leisure and travel, Nelson renders the vehicles inoperable, removing their wheels and sections of their bodies. Audiences navigate the interior of the work, passing through the rudimentary spaces of the 'wagons,' where objects and tableau suggest cultural and ideological others; perhaps these are the targets of what an idea of North American liberalism could suggest for the latent arrows in their quiver. Nelson's first interest in these once gleaming aluminum visions of the future was their resemblance to the early covered wagons of the first pioneers - not an unreasonable comparison when you realize that the oldest within the contruction dates back to 1939. Given the size and scope of this installation, The Power Plant is the second gallery to ever exhibit Quiver of Arrows.
In his new work for The Power Plant, Nelson revisits ideas and forms first seen inThe Amnesiacs, a serial project begun in 1996, which references a narrative involving an imaginary cast of characters — a group of ‘outsiders’ to the mainstream who uncannily resemble a disembodied late twentieth century biker gang, albeit without bikes. These quintessential outlaws of myth and literature, as depicted in the popular imagination of North America, are paralleled here with another favourite genre; that of the hunter or fur trader, exploring both groups’ economic underpinning of these romantic façades, and the resulting conflicts involved in the expansion of territory.