How Does Mike Nelson’s Exhibition Extinction Beckons Explore Matter and Extinction?

TL;DR

Mike Nelson’s Extinction Beckons explores how artworks move between sculpture, stored material, and historical narrative while confronting humanity’s possible extinction. Visitors enter through the old gift shop and encounter stored works including I, Impostor from 2011 and Deliverance and the Patience from 2001. Nelson also connects artificial intelligence, human identity, and the enduring importance of art. Read on to understand how specific installations develop these ideas.

Transcript

I remember some years ago a radio presenter casually sort of saying that uh all large mammals within a certain number of years would would be extinct if we carry on at the same rate that we're heading and it did strike me at the time that the news presenter seem to sort of not acknowledge the fact that he was a large mammal as well we'd already dec... Read More

Key Insights

• 🧑‍🎨 The artist's exploration of extinction serves as a thematic backdrop for the exhibition.
• 👾 Entry through a storage space challenges viewers to contemplate the transformation from material to artwork.
• 🥰 Reorganizing past works emphasizes art's timeless relevance in defining humanity.
• 🧑‍🎨 The artist's daughter's perspective adds a generational layer to the contemplation of existence.
• 🛰️ Art, materiality, and artificial intelligence intersect to prompt reflection on humanity's impact on its own existence.
• 👾 The exhibition invites viewers to consider the narrative embedded within sculptures and storage spaces.
• 🥰 The balance between materiality and sculpture challenges traditional categorizations of art and existence.

Questions & Answers

Q: What is Mike Nelson’s exhibition Extinction Beckons about?

Extinction Beckons examines the shifting boundary between sculpture and the materials from which sculpture is made. Mike Nelson connects that tension to memory, human identity, artificial intelligence, and the possibility that humanity could become extinct.

Q: Why do visitors enter Extinction Beckons through a storage space?

Visitors enter through the old gift shop and travel around the gallery in an unusual, almost backward direction. Nelson says that encountering storage before the show foregrounds matter and raises the question of when constructed material becomes sculpture, or returns to being a pile.

Q: Which earlier works appear in the exhibition’s opening spaces?

The first space refers back to Agent Dixon at the Red Star Hotel, a work Nelson made in 1995 for the basement of a South London gallery. Visitors also encounter I, Impostor from Venice in 2011 and pass through it toward Deliverance and the Patience from Venice in 2001.

Q: How does Asset Strippers shift between material and sculpture?

Nelson says Asset Strippers can appear to collapse into its constituent materials when viewed from certain angles. From other angles, it becomes a majestic, monumental sculpture, and that balance between matter and sculpture is what interests him.

Q: How has storage shaped Mike Nelson’s work?

Storage has remained a constant throughout Nelson’s history, both for practical reasons and out of curiosity. His 1996 work TRADING STATION ALPHA CMa initially appeared to be a room filled with detritus collected from London’s East End, with a concealed living quarter at its center.

Q: Why is Deliverance and the Patience significant in Extinction Beckons?

Nelson had not seen Deliverance and the Patience for 20 years, and it had not been shown again during that period. Reinstalled to resemble a raft or barge that might have floated through time and space, it feels displaced from its original context and, to him, has become a different work while retaining its original mode of expression.

Q: How did Mike Nelson’s youngest daughter affect his view of Projection Room?

His daughter had not been born when Projection Room was created, yet she was compelled by the rebuilt installation. Watching her examine something that existed before her but formed part of her existence made the encounter especially affecting for Nelson.

Q: How does Extinction Beckons connect artificial intelligence with human extinction?

Nelson argues that creating intelligence beyond humanity could relegate humans back to being understood simply as animals or large mammals. He links that possibility to extinction while expressing hope that music, film, and art will endure because they help define humanity as something beyond that category.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Artist reflects on large mammals' extinction and its implications on humanity.

• Art exhibition uses storage and sculpture to delve into materiality and existence.

• Works featured carry a narrative, challenging viewers to contemplate their own existence through art.