FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Mike Kelley: Selected Works 1982 – 1990
March 12 – April 27, 2002
Skarstedt Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of early works by Mike Kelley. This exhibition will assemble drawings, photographs and floor pieces from 1982-1990.
Steeped in irony and evincing a casual disregard for the confines of political correctness, Kelley’s oeuvre includes artworks that are controversial, provocative, intellectual and disturbing. In this exhibition, Kelley’s explores themes of childhood and adolescence, sexual and gender identity, and consumer culture. Kelley engages in a dialogue with these themes using various stylistic approaches without considerable conventionality. Often, Kelley’s choices of mediums have come across as rebellions against the high art establishment. This is evident in the paper and marker or black paints that dominant early drawings and paintings. In the following years, found objects such as the discarded stuffed animals were used because of their decidedly anti-commodity status.
During the 1990’s with so much of art’s discussion geared towards commodification, Kelley focused on the psychological and emotional burdens of commodity fetish culture that we place on our society from a very young age.
One of the most intriguing elements in his artwork is the narrative that at first glance seems obvious, but quickly gives way to multilayered complexities. The writing process was always fundamental for Kelley, which is obvious in his use of text in artworks, and the cartoonish vandalizations of history textbook illustrations of the Reconstructed History Series.
Kelley was born in 1954 in Wayne, Michigan and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Kelley received his BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. Kelley has had extensive gallery and museum exhibitions since1979, including Mike Kelley’s “Catholic Tastes,” Whitney Museum of American Art, November 5, 1993-February 20, 1994. Which traveled to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 30 – August 11, 1994 and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Fall 1994. Upcoming exhibitions include Black out, Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica, CA and Metro Pictures, New York, NY
For further information, please contact +1 212 737 2060 or info@skarstedt.com
Mike Kelley: Selected Works 1982 – 1990
March 12 – April 27, 2002
Skarstedt Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of early works by Mike Kelley. This exhibition will assemble drawings, photographs and floor pieces from 1982-1990.
Steeped in irony and evincing a casual disregard for the confines of political correctness, Kelley’s oeuvre includes artworks that are controversial, provocative, intellectual and disturbing. In this exhibition, Kelley’s explores themes of childhood and adolescence, sexual and gender identity, and consumer culture. Kelley engages in a dialogue with these themes using various stylistic approaches without considerable conventionality. Often, Kelley’s choices of mediums have come across as rebellions against the high art establishment. This is evident in the paper and marker or black paints that dominant early drawings and paintings. In the following years, found objects such as the discarded stuffed animals were used because of their decidedly anti-commodity status.
During the 1990’s with so much of art’s discussion geared towards commodification, Kelley focused on the psychological and emotional burdens of commodity fetish culture that we place on our society from a very young age.
One of the most intriguing elements in his artwork is the narrative that at first glance seems obvious, but quickly gives way to multilayered complexities. The writing process was always fundamental for Kelley, which is obvious in his use of text in artworks, and the cartoonish vandalizations of history textbook illustrations of the Reconstructed History Series.
Kelley was born in 1954 in Wayne, Michigan and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Kelley received his BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. Kelley has had extensive gallery and museum exhibitions since1979, including Mike Kelley’s “Catholic Tastes,” Whitney Museum of American Art, November 5, 1993-February 20, 1994. Which traveled to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 30 – August 11, 1994 and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Fall 1994. Upcoming exhibitions include Black out, Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica, CA and Metro Pictures, New York, NY
For further information, please contact +1 212 737 2060 or info@skarstedt.com