Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons
22 February – 7 May 2023
Hayward Gallery
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road
London
SE1 8XX
Full price standard: £15
Concessions available & Southbank Centre Members go free.
The Hayward Gallery will present Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons, the first major survey exhibition of large-scale immersive installations and sculptural works by the internationally acclaimed British artist. Nelson’s psychologically charged and atmospheric installations take viewers on enthralling journeys into fictional worlds that eerily echo our own.
Designed to dramatically transform the spaces of the Hayward Gallery, his exhibition will include towering sculptural works and new versions of his key epic installations, many of which will be shown at the Hayward Gallery for the first time since their original presentations.
Nelson represented Great Britain at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and has shown in leading galleries around the world. He has also been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including the 13th Biennale of Sydney, the 8th Istanbul Biennial and the 13th Lyon Biennale.
Mike Nelson says: “My intent has always been to make immersive works that operate on multiple levels. They should have a narrative, a spatial aspect, but also a psychological effect on the senses: you’re seeing and feeling one thing whilst your brain is trying to override this and tell you something else.”
Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons features ambitious reincarnations of key installations in Nelson’s body of works, including The Deliverance and the Patience (2001), Triple Bluff Canyon (2004) and Studio Apparatus for Kunsthalle Münster (2014); each remembered and reconfigured for the exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.
Constructed with materials scavenged from salvage yards, junk shops, auctions and flea markets, Nelson’s immersive installations have a startling life-like quality. Weaving references to science fiction, failed political movements, dark histories and countercultures, they touch on alternative ways of living and thinking: lost belief systems, interrupted histories and cultures that resist inclusion in an increasingly homogenised and globalised world.
Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons is curated by Yung Ma with Assistant Curator Katie Guggenheim and Curatorial Assistant Anusha Mistry.
Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons is generously supported by the Henry Moore Foundation and the Extinction Beckons Exhibition Supporters’ Group: Rennie Collection, Vancouver, 303 Gallery, and those who wish to remain anonymous.
©2023 Mike Nelson, Hayward Gallery
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