We explore the world of US artist Mike Kelley with the first UK exhibition of his work at the Tate Modern. ‘Ghost and Spirit’ shows Kelley’s influential and experimental practice ranging from drawings and collages to multimedia installations of “dark pop art”. Robert Bound speaks to Catherine Wood, the Tate Modern’s director of programme, about the show. Plus: Lisson Gallery content director Ossian Ward shares his view of Kelley’s imaginative career. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to Monocle on Culture.
I'm Robert Bound.
Today we're exploring the art of Mike Kelly, the late American multimedia titan, courtesy of a big, let's call it, landmark show at London's Tate Modern.
Titled Ghost and Spirit, the exhibition tacks through Kelly's work in a thematic more than chronological manner that allows us to explore the mind and making of one of the late 20th and early 21st century's most admired artists.
Kelly was admired for his work, which encompassed almost every sort of conceivable artistic practice, from video and performance to painting and writing via sound art.
So there's that.
But Kelly was also admired for never quite losing his countercultural kudos, his slightly wrong side of the trackishness, at least by his own reckoning.
Kelly liked saying he was an outsider and lived up to it, despite going on to be represented by the Big Deal Gagosian Gallery and, well, ending up here at the Tate.
He kicked against theory, perhaps, but loved being clever.
And as we'll see, Mike Kelly was a household name to the art world, producing work that was uncompromising, odd, imaginative, funny, thought through, and yet having a whiff of the cheap and nasty, the kitsch.
One critic in the New York Times described some of his work as being meticulously done, but looks like it should smell bad.
Well, quite.
When you see his innocent soft toys stitched into outlandish contortions, not all of them child friendly.
You wonder if he had a sad upbringing.
When you hear his noise rock, he was in many bands.
You wonder if he was full of anger.
But when you see the body of a sadly short life's work.
He committed suicide at the age of 57 in 2012.
You wonder at the thematic overlaps, the brightness, the illusions and allegories and stories he seems to be telling.
The show is a loud, deep, complex thing that rewards time and a little context.