ART CITIES: Monaco -Mike Nelson

Mike Nelson came to prominence in the late ‘90s, creating psychological environments by sifting through the debris of modern life. His installations are expansive dominions for assemblages of cultural detritus, often referencing specific works of literature and countercultural or failed political movements. Working with figures and materials on the fringes of society, Nelson asks his viewers to spend time inhabiting worlds that, while foreign on the surface, reveal intrinsic truths and modes of thought that affect even the most basic cultural activities.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Nouveau Musée National de Monaco Archive

Mike Nelson for “Cloak”, his project for Nouveau Musée National de Monaco project at the UBS Monaco building, which is currently closed for renovation, has proposed to render all that is visible within the abandoned bank ultramarine blue. Situated as it is at the junction of Northern Italy and Southern France and acting as a financial center, the Monaco bank is an apt place to reference the economic pertinence of colour in an historical sense. As the economic value embeds colour within the ancient trading networks, ultramarine blue references a rare commodity, and exists in the world of luxury goods. These two things: economic value and luxury goods are both closely associated with Monaco. Along with its associated ideas of value and currency, the Eastern source of this colour’s historical extraction further reverberates uncomfortably with current events in the world today. The sense of immersion over the seven floors of the building into the world of blue is quite mesmeric – almost hallucinogenic. The affect will be that of intoxication, a dreamlike situation that induces mental states that mimic the unreality that one has entered. Ultimately the visitors is led to the sun-bleached roof terrace. There they are 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 perhaps trapped inside the parameters of a blue screen. The sensation is contradictory inducing feelings of both suffocation and enlightenment, offering a glimpse of the potentiality of invisibility and the infinite.

Info: Curators: Suad Garayeva-Maleki & Cristiano Raimondi, UBS building, 2 avenue de Grande Bretagne, Monaco, Duration: 6/7-16/9/16, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 14:00-18:00 and by appointment, www.nmnm.mc