Studio apparatus
Two mixed-media installations shown simultaneously at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and Kunsthalle Münster, Münster (2014-2015), as parts of a sequence of ‘self-aware’ studios, each reflecting its time and context.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-78-1729
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France and Kunsthalle Münster, Münster, Germany
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- October
- Year of production
- 2014
- URL
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https://www.303gallery.com/public-exhibitions/mike-nelson9
- 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
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This output consists of two installations shown simultaneously at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR, 20 October 2014–11 January 2015; and Kunsthalle Münster, Münster, DE, 1 November 2014–22 February 2015. They are part of Nelson’s ongoing series Studio Apparatus in which the artist builds a sequence of ‘self-aware’ studios, each reflecting its time and context. In these two installations, Nelson looks back to a public artwork that he planned through two large-scale maquettes, but which was never realised – a monument to post-war public housing.
The installations mine the history of Nelson’s own productions, cannibalising visual motifs and references from his previous artworks to conjure new pieces. They also visually represent tombs or burial mounds for the unrealised project: in Münster, ghoulish concrete heads hung within a skeletal, three-dimensional drawing of a burial mound that cascaded through the gallery; in Paris, a stepped pyramid emulated the physical form of the project at the point it was halted.
Nelson’s Studio Apparatus works deal with the tension between idea and matter in the age of the Internet. Previous works have explored our historical reliance upon the sea and Hakim Bey’s idea that the shipping routes of imperialists, pirates and the military were the precursors to digital networks. Nelson’s ‘mysterious islands’ continue to arise through Studio Apparatus works, reminding us of those entanglements and updating his continuing struggle with his own history.
The studio is a much researched and documented concept in art history; artists from Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters to Paul Thek and Dieter Roth have explored similar ideas. While indebted to these references, Nelson questioned the concept and function of the studio space through an original, playful approach, creating an apparatus that both consciously aestheticised the studio, but also acted as a catalyst for new work in the future.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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