Mike Kelley - Mike Kelley's psychologically complex work was instrumental in making LA an international capital of contemporary art. Mike Kelley is shown in his studio with a work in progress in 1989.

1. SEARCH LATEST NEWS
Mike Kelley Home Privacy Archive
MIKE KELLEY
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
GO
Mike-Kelley.png
Mike Kelley's psychologically complex work was instrumental in making LA an international capital
of contemporary art. Mike Kelley is shown in his studio with a work in progress in 1989. (Los
Angeles Times) By Jori Finkel, Los Angeles Times Mike Kelley ...
Share |
MIKE KELLEY
POSTED BYO EIZ N THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
February 2, 2012Mike Kelley, an influential
Los Angeles artist whose physically
messy and psychologically complex
projects laid the groundwork for present-
day installation art, has died. He was 57.
He was found dead Tuesday evening at
his home in South Pasadena in what
several friends described as a suicide
following a serious depression. "We can't
confirm a suicide pending an autopsy or
coroner's report," said one of the estate's
trustees, art historian John Welchman.
Paul Schimmel, the chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, called Kelley
a "great advocate for artists as well as a great artist," noting his role teaching at the Art Center
College of Design.
"L.A. would not have become a great international capital of contemporary art without Mike Kelley,"
Schimmel said. "Of all the artists in the 1980s, he was the one who really broke out and
established a new and complex identity for his generation."
Kelley's death came as a surprise to many, but his fans have long recognized the demons that
fueled his work, known for its dark humor and punk irreverence. While he rejected the label of bad-
boy artist, some of his most famous works are raw or raunchy in their imagery.
Writing in Slate in 2005, novelist Jim Lewis said: "I think I could walk into any collection in the world
and spot the Mike Kelley piece immediately (and this despite his many imitators), which is more
than I could do with, say, Brice Marden. You can tell the Kelley work because it's the stuff that
itches, the stuff that reeks, the stuff that looks like it needs a good bath."
Or, as Times art critic Christopher Knight wrote in 1994, "Kelley is an avatar of the power and
humanity inherent in recognizing the radical impurity of human experience. His art searches out
dark and soiled places where defects, fault lines and inadequacies are obvious and routine, and
where failure takes on the poignant, fragile, even heartbreaking beauty that accompanies any loss
of self."