Imperfect geometry

Suggestive patterns of Oriental art encounter and tie in with Western art’s rational minimalism in Mike Nelson 3,500 concrete blocks laid out in a Swedish limestone quarry.

In autumn 2012 Mike Nelson exhibited his installation 408 tons of imperfect geometry at Malmö Konsthall.

The work consisted of cast concrete blocks placed on the floor in a geometric pattern. The blocks’ weight was calculated so that it – plus the visitors – could only just be supported by the exhibition hall’s floor. The pattern created by the blocks was an expression of Nelson’s long-term interest in design via the Arts and Crafts movement and its roots back to Oriental culture, in particular Islamic forms and patterns. The same concrete blocks that were created for Malmö Konsthall’s exhibition have been used to create a new work for Kalkbrottet (Limhamn limestone quarry, now a municipal nature reserve within the City of Malmö).

Imperfect geometry for a concrete quarry consists of approximately 3,500 concrete blocks laid out in their strict repetitive geometric pattern. Here, Nelson allows the suggestive and enigmatic patterns of Oriental art to encounter and tie in with Western art’s rational minimalism. The work influences us physically through its weight and size but also intellectually via its almost meditative nature. In the raw concrete surface each block bears traces of its own process of inception and production.

The work’s placement in Kalkbrottet adds yet another dimension through its location being the very source of one of the main constituents of concrete, that of limestone. Now redundant, the encroaching wilderness is reflected in the structural complexity attempted by the sculptural form laid out across the quarry’s floor, poised to spread further in any direction it can find purchase. The physical nature of the work seems strangely fitting to the site, reinforcing a sense of servitude that one might feel about its very making – something echoed in the site returning to nature after its creation through man’s industry.