Mike Nelson, Procession, process. Progress, progression. Regression, recession. Recess, regress, 2009
Installation view, Akbank Cultural Center, Istanbul. Courtesy Serkan Taykan.
Mike Nelson’s installation, commissioned for Journeys with No Return at the Akbank in Istanbul is a prequel for a proposed piece never made for the Istanbul Biennial of 2003. This proposal was to be a cast in concrete on site from one of the wooden ottoman buildings of the city, a sort of lost Kemalist modernism. The work endeavoured to comment on the design for a modern society in Turkey and the speed at which it was instigated. In relation to this, Nelson’s new piece a concrete and steel "carpet" suggests the brutality of such a material alchemy, but also the impossibility of the eradication of previous histories by the weight of historical timbers laid across the wet material. The ottoman timbers were then stood up to look on as witnesses at their own imprint upon the concrete.
Nelson was born in Loughborough, UK and lives and works in London. He has presented major installations at the São Paulo Biennial (2004), at the Istanbul Biennial (2003), the Venice Biennale (2001) the Tate Triennial 2009 and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 and 2007.