Wanderlust is a group exhibition that explores the themes of walking, journeys, and pilgrimages. Inspired by the High Line as an ambulatory space experienced most naturally in motion, Wanderlust extends the tradition of Conceptual art wherein the act of walking served as an inspiration for many artists who explored life both in the urban context and in an ambivalent confrontation with nature.
On the High Line, itself an urban promenade that combines nature and architecture, the act of walking is both celebrated and taken for granted. Wanderlust invites viewers to remember the many implications of the journeys and walks they take every day, placing them within a secular tradition that expands beyond art into both everyday life and our shared cultural histories.
Mike Nelson (b. 1967, United Kingdom) creates landscapes of sculptures from discarded materials, arranged together to suggest a narrative of objects one might find along the side of a highway or in an abandoned campground. The artist’s sculptural work for the High Line is made from rubble from the numerous development sites through which the High Line passes. The work straddles an uneasy confusion of land art and empathetic figurative sculpture