Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons at the Hayward Gallery review, one of the best surveys I’ve seen
Ben Luke | Evening Standard | 21st February 2023
Nelson’s acclaimed installations are hugely ambitious and huge – a labyrinth of “dingy rooms, full of grubby decorations”, salvaged industrial machinery, a woodshed partially buried under sand. Many are “speculative fictions” that feel “uncanny”, tempting the viewer to construct an explanatory narrative. “It’s like walking through a novel, each room a chapter deepening the intrigue, only the protagonists are nearly entirely conjured in our heads … one of the most original shows I have seen.”