Contemporary artist Mike Kelley died on Wednesday of an apparent suicide. He was 57. Holland Cotter of The New York Times writes of the different aspects of Kelley’s work:
“On one level, the pieces were sardonic send-ups of aesthetic trends like Minimalism, which Mr. Kelley despised as elitist. On another, they took aim at the strain of too-easy sentimentality he found repellent in popular culture. At yet another level, these pieces, with their martyred dolls and ruined promise of warmth, were innocence-and-experience metaphors, suggesting the trauma of hurt and loss that underlay the juvenile delinquent antics that surrounded them.”
When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1989, my roomate’s boyfriend went to CalArts, where Kelley studied in the late 70s with teachers, John Baldessari, Laurie Anderson, and Douglas Huebler, and we hung out on campus and at various studios around town. At the time, everyone was making art like Kelley’s. His flea market, stuffed animal, scatological style wasn’t merely influential. It was just what you did. Here are a few of his dogs.
Mike Kelley’s NYT obituary by Holland Cotter is here.
