Cloak
Mixed-media installation developed across the former UBS building in Monaco, which rendered all that was visible in the abandoned building ultramarine blue, through spraying the walls, fixtures and fittings with 760 litres of ultramarine paint.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-76-1728
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Former USB Building, Monaco
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- June
- Year of production
- 2016
- URL
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https://www.303gallery.com/news/mike-nelson-cloak
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Mike Nelson was commissioned by the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco to realise an off-site project at the former UBS building in
Monaco, 4 July–15 September 2016. For Cloak (2016), Nelson rendered all that was visible in the abandoned building ultramarine blue, spraying the walls, fixtures and fittings with 760 litres of ultramarine paint.
Monaco, at the junction of Northern Italy and Southern France, is one of the most expensive and wealthiest places in the world. The site for
Cloak (2016), a Belle Époque building formerly occupied by UBS Bank, seemed an apt place to reference the economic pertinence of the
pigment ultramarine (see Bomford, 1995).
Despite the seeming simplicity of the method of its creation, Cloak (2016) raised complex questions about geography, art and economics.
The extraction of lapis lazuli from mines in Afghanistan to create ultramarine pigment speaks to the connectivity and exploitation of the
world and its resources through commerce, epitomised by the financial centre of Monaco.
Cloak (2016) was also intended to create a feeling of overwhelmingness and to present a whole building as a sculptural object. The sense of
immersion over the seven floors of the building into the world of blue was mesmeric –almost hallucinogenic. The effect was intoxicating;
akin to a dreamlike situation that induces mental states of unreality. Ultimately, the visitors were led to the sun-bleached roof terrace. There,
they were allowed to rest and survey the sea beyond, before being immersed back into the cloak of deep blue, an underworld akin to that
of the ocean, or similar to being trapped inside the digital parameters of a blue screen. The sensation was contradictory, inducing feelings
of both suffocation and enlightenment, offering a fluctuating illusion between invisibility and the infinite.
A visual publication, created by Nelson, included thorough documentation of the installation.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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