fHé ISUM'PKIN PALACE (COLLECTIVE OFF-SITE) 6 Market Street, until Sun 12 Sep .0...
Step inside this art installation by Mike Nelson and you understand what it must feel like to break into a burglar‘s house. A warren of doors and rooms leads you through someone else's life, and their absent presence follows you all the way. Maybe you‘re going to find them in the next room. Or maybe they‘re going to find you.
At first, it’s easy to jump to conclusions: it‘s an old jalopy of a bus driven by Muslim activists. There’s a crescent painted on the outside, and Arabic script above the front windscreen, implying that it‘s heading East. Climb into the cab and a host of details confirm the Arab influence: a copy of The Contemporary Muslim by the driver’s seat; 3 ‘Pakistan‘ key fob. You enter the rear of the bus, where tiny rooms have been built, separated by creaking doors. The first contains narrow sleeping platforms. Or are they places for storing the recently-dead? As you move through the rooms, the messages become confused. You notice American matchbooks and posters for early-70$ Californian bands. It begins to feel more hippy
than halal. Interior view Deeper into the installation, the confusion of American and Arabic traces becomes more disturbing. Small, coffin- than it answers. And like the best work of Ilya Kabakov or theatre
like sleeping spaces that might be for militia men. But within them, director Robert Wilson, the bus is capable of transporting its occupants there‘s a Holy Bible and flip flops. Perhaps the ’ to somewhere both believable and very unexpected. captors are Americans and the captives Arabic? Meaning, in this bus at least, is on the move. There’s a shiny metal surface with sharp cooking Don‘t be deceived by its modest scale: all of Mike knives sitting on it - perfect as a torture table. Or a Nelson’s impressive abilities are condensed into this makeshift surgery slab . . . There’s an old television, installation. It is a timely, unsettling and technically playing violent images of Islamic insurgence, next awesome project that evokes a world of paranoia and to a 1966 text book on how to avoid getting drafted fanaticism, a world which then melts before your eyes for US military service. into something entirely different. It is, quite simply, one Like all great art, this piece raises more questions of the artistic highlights of the year. (Nick Barley)
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