Mike Kelley, Kandors 1999-2011 (Installation View), via Art Observed

Considering artist Mike Kelley’s enduring relationship and engagement wiht the landscape of Los Angeles, the return of the artist’s famed Kandors series to Hauser & Wirth in the city’s Arts District feels like something of a victory lap for the artist’s works.  The Kandors, which have made their rounds over the past several years, showing in New York, Europe, and elsewhere, represent one of Kelley’s final bodies of work before his untimely passing, and perhaps his most elaborate engagement with the language of pop culture, and the varied convergences of mythology and psychology that so often make up the language of the best American cultural iconographies.

Mike Kelley, Kandors 1999-2011 (Installation View), via Art Observed

(more…)

Artist Catherine Opie has joined the board of the Mike Kelley Foundation. “Cathy’s strong voice, energy, and commitment to the arts as an artist, teacher, and advocate will undoubtedly deepen our efforts and will be invaluable to the development of our organization,” says Mary Clare Stevens, the foundation’s executive director. (more…)

Mike Kelley, Kandors (Installation View), via Venus Over Manhattan

Venus Over Manhattan is currently presenting a curated review of Mike Kelley’s work in the Kandor series this month, exploring the artist’s work and research into the comic book mythology of Superman, the implications of his origin story, and the broader cultural and psychological frameworks that this story works within and through.  Selecting four of the artist’s works in the series, the show takes a meditative, focused perspective on Kelley’s expansive body of work. (more…)

Mike Kelley, Balanced by Mass and Personification (2001), all photos via Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed

One of the most influential American artists of the past 30 years, Mike Kelley‘s considerable body of work runs a long thread of intricately connected and often curiously diverse modes of working and creating, often creating internal exchanges and conversations that further the artist’s exploration of memory, time, and personal histories.  The late artist’s Memory Ware series has long stood as one of the less explored and understood series from his catalog, even though Kelley continued to make these works until close to his untimely passing in 2012.  Consisting of hundreds of different objects, the series manifests some of Kelley’s most fundamental thematic concerns through a reliance on bizarre fusions of kitsch, often drawing collective and personal memories, American folk art, consumerist tendencies, and pop culture into close proximity. (more…)

Mike kelley, The Thirteen Seasons (Heavy on the Winter) #13: Art (1994), via Art Observed

This week, Skarstedt Gallery opened a show of Mike Kelley’s shaped paintings at its Chelsea exhibition space, the first time that the artist’s work in this series of egg-shaped, abstracted canvases has been compiled at one time.  Taking the artist’s interests in psychoanalytic techniques, trauma, and their intersections with the structures of mainstream American culture, the exhibition offers a close look at Kelley’s interests, juxtaposed through a series of pictorial relationships, or contrasted from work to work in a single room. (more…)

Brice Marden, Star (for Patti Smith) (1972-74), via Phillips Auction

Following in the footsteps of an early evening auction at Christie’s just an hour prior, Phillips has logged a staid but consistent auction into the books for its sole evening sale of the spring auction week.  The auction house’s 20th Century Sale achieved moderate success with a final tally of $46,576,000, with only 3 of the 38 lots going unsold.

(more…)

Maurizio Cattelan, Him (2001), via Christie’s

This week’s marathon series of art auctions is underway in New York City, as Christie’s launched a rare, specially-curated Sunday sale, ending its 39 lot Bound to Fail auction with a final tally of $78,123,250, with only a single lot going unsold.  The fair, which followed hot on the heels of the last hours of Frieze, saw modest bidding and consistently dependable sales, although several works sold for final prices below estimate. (more…)

Robert Gober, Untitled (1997), all photos via Andrea Nguyen for Art Observed

Taking the fraught emotional landscape of early childhood as its central focus, Skarstedt Gallery’s London location is currently presenting a subdued but emotionally poignant group show, exploring the use and manipulation of the objects, scenarios and symbolism of youth as a productive force for a group of the gallery’s artist.  Exhibiting work from Robert Gober, the late Mike Kelley and Vija Celmins, the stripped-down exhibition carries an impressive punch. (more…)

Mike Kelley, Kandor 10B (2011), via Art Observed

Mike Kelley’s Kandor series ranks among the artist’s more enigmatic projects: a series of sculptures, videos and installation work that works the origin mythologies of the Superman comics into the fabric of the artist’s own life and work.  The works are equally desolate and comical, peculiar and commanding in their execution, often rendered in glowing hues of purple, red and yellow, or countered by immense chunks of sculpted detritus, recreating the titular hero’s Fortress of Solitude. (more…)

Forcefield, Meerk Puffy Autumn Shroud (2002), via Art Observed

Over the past half century, American art has distinguished itself as much for its formal heroes (Pollock, de Kooning, Judd, etc.) as its outliers, artists working along distinct threads of the abject, pop culture and mass production who challenged the more refined and neatly conceptualized exercises of the 20th Century avant-garde.  This separate thread of American art, running from 1960’s comic-book art through the punk and funk movements of the 1970’s and onwards through the chaotic energies of turn of the century performance and video are the subject of What Nerve!, a documentation of the American underground at Matthew Marks. (more…)

Hauser and Wirth has announced that it will serve globally as the representative for the Mike Kelley Foundation.  Established by the artist in 2007, the organization issues grants to artists working on challenging projects among Kelley’s preferred mediums.   (more…)

Corresponding with the opening of Mike Kelley’s retrospective at MOCA in Los Angeles, Opening Ceremony has released a series of t-shirts featuring artwork from Kelley’s works.  Graphics from The Poltergeist, Monkey Island, and other early projects will adorn shirts and bags, now on sale at the MOCA Store and at the Opening Ceremony locations. (more…)

Mobile Homestead, one of the last works created by American artist Mike Kelley before his suicide last year, will open at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit on May 11th.  The piece, a loyal recreation of Kelley’s childhood home in suburban Detroit, will be used as a community space of sorts, open for the people of Kelley’s home city to hold shows, art events or meetings.  “He kept saying to me, ‘This is never going to happen — it’s a joke,’ because that’s the way he was,” said Marsha Miro, founder and director of the contemporary museum. “But he also said he thought it would be one of the most important things he ever did, partly because it would keep on being a living piece.” (more…)

Jim Shaw, Untitled (US Presidents), 2006, Courtesy of the artist and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

The Baltic Centre in Gateshead is currently holding the first-ever retrospective of works by American Jim Shaw outside the United States. Including over one hundred works in a variety of media, from video and sculpture to paintings and installations, the show explores Shaw’s ongoing examination of American life, and his unique set of aesthetic signifiers at play throughout his career.

(more…)

Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Carpinteros, Kosmaj Toy (2012).

All images by A.M. Ekstrand for ArtObserved, on location at Art Basel Miami Beach Fair.

Art Basel returned once again in Miami Beach this past week for the 11th annual Art Basel Miami Beach Fair. Featuring over 300 galleries representing 36 countries around the world, the show has exhibited marked growth from last year’s event, with well over 2,000 artists flocking to exhibit at what has become the internationally-renowned closing party for the world art market each year.  It is of course always an irony that tens of thousands will fly down for the events and parties, with many of them never visiting the vast aggregation of what it said to be roughly $1.5 billion worth of art in one (large) room, a collection that few museums in the world could compete with.   Below is a selection of some of the works we thought to be notable from the fair.

Helly Nahmad Gallery, Mark Rothko No. 1 (1957) and Alexander Calder, installation view

(more…)

Image: Doug Aitken, Tilda Swinton in The Source, 2012, via Sky Arts Ignition

American artist Doug Aitken has his first public installation in the UK entitled The Source, which asks a variety of leading arts practitioners questions about where their creative ideas come from. Viewers can watch video conversations with artists such as Tilda Swinton, Jack Pierson, Jack White, and Mike Kelley, projected inside a temporary structure on Liverpool’s historic Albert Dock built in collaboration with renowned British architect David Adjaye.

Read More »

(more…)

Desi Santiago’s mass 2 (2012), image: Aniko Berman for Art Observed

On Saturday, July 28th, the Watermill Center hosted The Big Bang, its 19th Annual Summer Benefit. Held on the performance art center’s expansive Southampton grounds, the event commenced with cocktails for over 1,200 guests, all of whom were invited to explore over twenty site-specific performances and installations scattered throughout the center’s indoor and outdoor spaces, as well as to bid in a silent auction featuring works by Marina Abramovic, Sandro Chia, Shirin Neshat, Dennis Oppenheim, Terry Richardson, Will Ryman, Spencer Tunick, and Aaron Young, among others. A tented dinner for over 650 guests followed, including a live auction led by Simon de Pury, where works by artists such Michelangelo Pistoletto, Anselm Reyle, and Willem de Kooning were offered. Inclement weather threatened the evening, with unwelcome downpours impeding the guests’ ability to view the outdoor works. Nonetheless, the event raised more than $1.5 million for the center, which has actively promoted the creation and dissemination of performance art since its founding by leading “theater artist” Robert Wilson in 1992.

Guests in front of Paul McCarthy‘s Butt Plug (2012)

(more…)

‪‬Mike Kelley‘s Artangel project, ‘Mobile Homestead’ to be screened at the Whitney Museum May 16–20. The video portion consists of three different hour-long videos documenting the replica of his childhood home traveling through Detroit

(more…)

Gearing up for a performance piece on the fourth floor.  All images for Art Observed by Anna Mikaela Ekstrand.

The festive albeit politically charged atmosphere at the 2012 76th annual Whitney Biennial‘s pre-show event was practically interdependent, with the political climate not only informing the sentiments of viewers, but arguably the art itself. While protesters outside encouraged entering guests to “Occupy the Whitney,” antagonizing Sotheby’s and Deutsche Bank for withholding benefits from workers and developing financial strategies to benefit the ‘one percent,’ art indoors at the biennial also challenged artistic convention against the same political scale, with over 50 artists showing work.

Chuck Close touring the second floor

(more…)

All photos by Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer

The “Third and a half” Brucennial opened last night in New York City, the 2012 edition titled, “Harderer. Betterer. Fasterer. Strongerer.” At 159 Bleecker Street, the high-ceilinged art-filled space reached its capacity of 15,000—with a line around the block—shortly after opening its doors at 6 PM. Organized by the anonymous Bruce High Quality Foundation and Vito Schnabel, a large main room, balcony, and basement, were covered with paintings, sculptures, video-works, and other installations by artists both established and less so. Running the gamut from friends of the Bruces to a Damien Hirst spot painting, exhibiting artists of note include Mike Kelley, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, Sigmar Polke, Julian Schnabel, Anselm Reyle,  Francesco Clemente, Aurel Schmidt, Dan Colen, David Salle, George Condo, Rashid Johnson, Dash Snow,  Terence Koh,  Richard Prince, Joseph Beuys, Scott Campbell, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Tom Sachs, Andy Warhol (collaboration), and Dustin Yellin.

Francesco Clemente

(more…)

‪‬Mike Kelley project with Artangel and MOCAD ‘Modern Homestead’ public art work to stay in storage in Michigan, while 3 project-based videos will show at Whitney Biennial, which is dedicated to the recently deceased Kelley [AO Newslink]

(more…)

Mike Kelley, via Interview

Los Angeles-based artist Mike Kelley (born Detroit 1954) passed away from apparent suicide in a state of depression, according to Helene Winer of Metro Pictures Gallery in New York. Kelley was represented by Metro Pictures for twenty years before showing with Gagosian since the early 2000s. His work often dealt with found objects and abjection, from sculptures and collages to performance and video, coined “clusterfuck aesthetics” by Jerry Saltz after his 2005 show, Day is Done. Kelley was also a proponent of punk, having been in bands throughout college, ‘Destroy All Monsters’ at the University of Michigan, and ‘Poetics’ at the California Institute of the Arts. Having held major solo exhibitions at the Whitney, LACMA, Tate, and Louvre, Kelley’s work is slated to be shown at the Whitney Biennial for the eighth time this year.

Mike Kelley, Arena #7 (Bears). Via the Skarstedt Gallery.

(more…)

Paul McCarthy, Cultural Gothic (1992). All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

Art Observed was on site for the private Tuesday evening preview of the Rubell Family Collection/Contemporary Arts Foundation show American Exuberance. Throughout 28 gallery spaces in a 45,000 sq ft museum, 190 works by 64 artists explore the American condition today through art, dissecting the paradoxical arenas of culture, economics, and politics. A 244-page catalog includes written commentaries by 13 of the artists from the notable roster, as follows: Thomas Houseago, Richard Jackson, Rashid Johnson, Nate Lowman, Richard Prince, Sterling Ruby, Haim Steinbach, Ryan Trecartin, and to name a few. About a quarter of the works were made in 2011 specifically for the show.  Also, Art Observed returned the next morning on Wednesday for Jennifer Rubell’s 11th annual breakfast, which is presented every morning throughout the week, treats visitors to a small jar of fresh yogurt, to be ‘anointed’ with honey dripping from the ceiling.

Collecting dripping honey at Jennifer Rubell’s Incubation yogurt and honey breakfast.

(more…)

–>
Mike Kelley, Still from Extracurricular Projective Reconstruction #34 (The King and Us/The Queens and Me) (2010). Via Gagosian

Mike Kelley rages ahead at the Gagosian, expanding on projects from his infamous show at the gallery’s New York hub, titled Day is Done, in 2005. Exhibiting for the first time at the L.A. Gagosian, Kelley presents Kandor 10/Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction, #34 Kandor 12/Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #35, a combination of two earlier works, Kandors (1999) and Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction (EAPR) (2006). Recently known for exemplifying what art critic Jerry Saltz coined as “clusterfuck aesthetics,” Kelley continues his explorations of the grotesque pop cultural diaspora. The titling of this new show alone indicates Kelley’s continued interest in clusterfuck art: the scrambled code of his earlier works, barely intelligible key words that read like an internet pop up.

–>
Mike Kelley, Kandor 18 B (2010). Via Gagosian

More text and images after the jump…

(more…)