Mike Nelson M6 (detail, photograph) 2013
Eastside Projects, 86 Heath Mill Lane
12 January – 9 March 2013
Preview Friday 11 January, 6-8pm (tonight!)
Eastside Projects presents M6 a new commission by Mike Nelson, one of the most significant artists working in the UK today. M6 is Nelson’s first major exhibition in his home region and continues his singular investigation of political histories through the raw materials of our world.
Within the old industrial heart of Birmingham, discarded, utilitarian objects have been collected as if they were trophies of an ignored parallel world – a dark, abject monument. M6 acts as an invocation of the highways and their concrete islands, memorialising their past production and the shifting economies of spent resources.
Nelson represented Britain at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and has twice been nominated for the Turner Prize: in 2001, and again in 2007. His work The Coral Reef (2000), commissioned by Matt’s Gallery, London, was installed as part of the collection at Tate Britain, London (2010-11).
Eastside Projects’ preview nights are great for meeting people involved in Birmingham culture, so I highly recommend you venture along tonight. I shall be there. If you’d like to find out more about Eastside Projects, please take a look at my Welcome To Birmingham article or visit their website eastsideprojects.org.