Mike Nelson

Mike Nelson (b. Loughborough, UK) lives and works in London, UK. Nelson is known for his expansive, often claustrophobic installations made of assemblages of cultural detritus. These spaces often reference specific works of literature and countercultural or failed political movements, conveying a sense of forlornness. He considers discarded objects as trophies from an ignored parallel world, and he memorialises their past production in his assemblages of debris.

A7 (Route du soleil) (2015) is a sculptural work comprising a damaged car tyre is placed on a concrete slab atop a rudimentary cage. It is part of a series of works in which Nelson repurposes blown-out tyres he has found beside motorways. The titles refer to the roads where they were found – in this instance the A7 connecting Lyon and Marseille, also known as the Motorway of the Sun. The resulting sculptures play with the relationship between function and value, significance and uselessness.