The Layering Guru
Last week we lost one of the ultimate contemporary artists of our time, Mike Kelley. His art, among many other adjectives, was and is innovative and fresh. Represented by Gagosian Gallery, Kelley’s artwork is a big deal among the big dealers and among students who seek for that deep dark side in art like my deep dark self. What the young contemporary artists-in-training seek to do, Kelley has already done: his kitschy philosophically-loaded works make us reminiscent of our pasts, aroused by the present, and ravaged by the possibility and unsureness of the future. If you doubt his geniusness which isn’t a word but at the same time is the perfect word, why didn’t you think of shitting on stuffed animals? Think about that.
Eviscerated Corpse (1989)- courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago
Marilyn Minter referred to his genius creations as “mining a thirteen year old’s bedroom” but really it’s like mining my bedroom today.
dress vintage t-shirt DANNIJO shirt Equiptment tights Uniqlo shoes ACNE jewelry DANNIJO, vintage, Victoria & Albert Design Shop
The patterns, the baby ballerina bun, not really the shoes, and the pink o’ plenty is all an ode to Mike Kelley. So are the knots on my shirts which are equivalent to three nipples.
And every time you but mostly I throw clothes on in a clashy yet systematic way—try “layering”—you are taking a page out of Mike Kelley’s book of art. R.I.P.
