In the 20th century galleries of Tate Britain the futuristic, sinister, powerful sculpture, ‘The Rock Drill’ suggests something from Star Wars, though Jacob Epstein created it over 60 years before Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo, Princess Leia and the Stormtroopers made their appearance in the cinema.

Epstein originally meant the sculpture to be representative of a powerful new mechanical age but, with military inventions such as armoured vehicles resulting in huge casualties in the First World War, he altered it to reflect both the power and the vulnerability arising from new technology.

In the Duveen Galleries at the heart of Tate Britain, the sculptural shape of a rusty redundant agricultural machine has shapes and forms which are eerily similar to Epstein’s sculpture.   Although country houses such as Chatsworth have long had galleries in which to show their sculpture collections, when the Duveen Galleries opened in 1935 it was the first such series of galleries in a public institution. While its towering stone walls ensures that this use cannot be compromised too much, the Tate Gallery does however provide an opportunity, through its annual Tate Britain Commission, for an artist to go wild and create something new that responds to and challenges the space – often with much more imaginative results than the similar commission in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.

This year’s artist Mike Nelson has created a cross between a sculpture gallery and a second-hand warehouse, linking, as Jacob Epstein did, with both the power of machines and their vulnerability, in this case redundancy as technology becomes outdated.  Nelson refers back to the post-war period in which his family worked on knitting machines in the textile factories for which the East Midlands was then internationally famous.  Think of towns and cities such as Halifax, Bradford, Huddersfield, Leicester and Manchester, to name but a few.

But then, it all came to an end, and his family, along with many others, experienced the demise of the textile industry in the UK, the closure of mills and factories, the mothballing and scrapping of these once energetic machines, the loss of jobs and the economic heart stripped out of their communities.

Mike has divided up the normally free-flowing spaces of the Duveen Galleries with second-hand partitions and doors that invoke the old factories from which the machinery has come and has filled it with machines, benches, pallets and a host of items obtained from auction houses and liquidators as they try to make some money for creditors, owners and shareholders from businesses which have crashed.  The title of the exhibition ‘The Asset Strippers’ is a harsh one; it suggests a measure of force, of going into businesses and closing them down, perhaps forcibly, stripping their assets and disposing of what might bring in some money.   These once proud machines are as sculpturally reminiscent of Britain and its industrial decline in the second half of the 20th century as sculptures of Greek gods, philosophers and athletes are of Ancient Greece which in 323BC was at its zenith under Alexander the Great, but by 146 BC had gone – no longer an independent country, but a colony of Rome.

It’s not just our industrial heritage.   Other materials have come from decaying military barracks, from housing estate which had been boarded up and from a derelict hospital estate – all that is missing is a school – reflecting Mike’s view of the current situation in what should be the essential roles of Government in supporting defence, health and housing, plus education, which has been totally lost in the current chaos of Brexit.

It is fascinating to take Mike’s theme and reflect on the carnage which is now taking place on the High Street.   Here, the title ‘The Asset Strippers’ really comes into focus.  Once, great department stores and retail companies owned their properties and businesses and could take a long term view, but, over the years they have been sold off, often to financial institutions whose focus is a short term one on making money.  What we can see on the High Street is the 2019 version of Mike’s installation.  Technological change and asset strippers result in businesses being closed, people made redundant and cities and towns losing their economic heart, plus a Government who seems determined to help destroy the High Street with its policy on Business Rates and has shown no appreciation of the structural change which is happening.

And, sadly, the art world is not immune – you can see it as galleries gradually close and disappear from London.    While our government is paralysed by Brexit, the country has major issues that need to be addressed.

A great exhibition, worth seeing on many levels.