All images courtesy of the Artist and The British Council
Mike Nelson
IL ‘impostor
The British Pavilion at the 54th Biennale di Venezia
04.06.2011- 27.11.2011
It feels quite apt to write about this exhibition in hindsight, given its anachronism.
Mike Nelson, IL ‘impostor, as he calls his installation in this years British Pavilion, has feigned an authentic Turkish Caravanserai. These roadside inns where travellers and traders could meet along their journey, supported ancient trade routes such as the Silk Road, which date back to 440 BC. During the 12th century Venetian merchants exploited a trading privilege granted to them by the Byzantine Empire in 1082 for helping defend them against the Normans. Venice prospered greatly. It’s possible to imagine these very same traders staying in a building very like this as a result.
I was fortunate enough to invigilate this exhibition for the duration of one month. Spending this long in the different enclaves of the space changed my perspective, ranging from indifference, to interest, to violent dislike, right through to mild enthusiasm- difficult if you have to explain it to a variety of people! However, there is a sincere (and extremely ambitious) execution wrapped up in its inherent insecurity.
I think it’s safe to say we all found it hard to verbally justify Mike’s intentions relating to the history of Istanbul, given the past as a bit of a dead end cul-de-sac, still, experientially though, this is something to be seen. There was a bit of a sense of the Natural History Museum about it, but without the ethical anthropological baggage, and it directs a cool post-colonial questionable jibe with a hint of self-reflectivity towards this kind of alchemy.
As you walk through the installation, you stoop you way through a clockwise spiral, a maze of dimly lit low enclaves, until you reach the center. Here it opens out into a vast courtyard with smooth concrete walls stretching to the heavens above you. As you return, you walk exactly the same way you came, which looks completely different from this direction. You unravel over your previous steps and then come to the front door where you are free to either pick up where you left off, or start all over again. As one elderly visitor put it, she “felt like she had come to the end of the road, died, and then been given a fresh start”.
The context of a “national” pavilion seems to add a post-colonial aspect to the work, as one visitor put it whilst briskly exiting the building, “It’s just not British”.
