190109: Villa Arson: Mike Nelson – Le Cannibale (Parody, consumption and institutional critique)

Villa Arson: Mike Nelson – Le Cannibale (Parody, consumption and institutional critique) Geometry and anarchy It is not easy to bring destruction into disrepute. On the contrary, artists tirelessly let it revive through repetition. We only seem to get to know the form or the system when it is being destroyed. And ultimately something new is created through the destruction. The perverted dissection of floors, even of entire exhibition halls, can often be seen in art today e.g. by Bonvicini, Sierra or Althamer. This has nothing to do with violence, it has much more to do with empathy, parody, and new creations, if not even with the newly awakened search for the fourth dimension. Mike Nelson’s work mediates the power of destruction and also of excessive confusion. The British artist’s work oscillates between a space station and a sculpture. “Le Cannibale”, which was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2007, is a more sophisticated version of the installation, which he created in 1999, and which was - in an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 2008 - dedicated to the cult-author of horror stories, H.P. Lovecraft. A system of different sized white bases and cubes, with brown ruptures and black holes reminding of wounds, resembles a desolate heap of rubble or a deserted battlefield. Nelson’s work refers to the past (Smithson, Matta-Clark, Barock) and the present, reality, and literary fiction (Borges). If someone feels like discovering which reality is hidden behind the opened materiality of the white cubes with their dark abyss and eerie gaping openings, can do so without further ado. It is easy and requires quite some flexibility. The visitor then appears in a kind of adventurous physical ridiculousness, something the artist probably aimed at. Instead of simply bemoaning the “Disenchantment of the World” (Weber) and to look out for the islands of magic, Nelson took the eerie, respectively the cannibalistic, and thereby made ousted energies tangible. Goschka Gawlik Villa Arson 06105 Nice, 20 av, Stephen Liégeard, until 01.02.09 www.villa-arson.org

Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville

190109

Villa Arson
06105 Nice, 20 av, Stephen Liégeard
Tel: +31-04 92 07 73 73, Fax: +31-04 93 84 41 55
http://www.villa-arson.org
Öffnungszeiten: 14 - 18 h

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