Compared to the ambitious nature of British artist Mike Nelson’s previous installations (e.g. the four conjoined Airstream trailers in his last show), his latest sculptures made of scrap material are something of a letdown, though they don’t lack for imagination. Inspired by sci-fi, the works are presented as part of a story, a tale about a postapocalyptic colony of amnesiacs who make art from junk washed up along the shore near their bleak North Sea home. The resulting cobbled-together totems are equally funny and sad, a grim reminder of what we’re doing to the planet.
While Nelson’s narrative is evocative, it isn’t served by the gallery’s environment, in which battered objects jarringly contrast with the immaculate white-cube interior. Rather than evoke a story, the sculptures appear stranded within a space that seems overcrowded.
There are, however, a few standouts: One piece inventively transforms charred driftwood and shredded traffic cones into a beach bonfire; another turns nautical rope into a serpent. Figurative forms dot the proceedings with gallon milk jugs for heads; one guy even wears a car’s floor mat for a cape.
Tasked with rebuilding civilization, Nelson’s characters seem poised to repeat its mistakes. Pathetically tattered flags, for example, carve out competing territories.
Still, as a whole, the show speaks to the unstoppable urge to create. In the end, it’s rather upbeat, an optimism expressed by a message in a bottle attached to one sculpture that reads to the life!.—Merrily Kerr