Mike Kelley (b.1954) is one of the best contemporary examples of an artist who, like Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni and Vito Acconci before him, combines sculpture with performance. Best known for his assemblage sculptures made from stuffed children's toys, often set upon the 'stage' of a homemade Afghan rug, Kelley draws upon the Modernist traditions of the found object and collage in his colourful, irreverent sculptures. Childhood and adolescence are referenced with all the sexual ambiguity, tastelessness and low humour associated with those age groups. His attitude of aesthetic disobedience, bridging 'low' (crafts) and 'high' (sculpture, painting) forms of art, has its roots in the rejection of the social and moral fabric of American culture. Despite his subversion and anti-art tactics, Kelley has been recognized since the 1980s by the international art world as one of the most significant and representative artists working today in the United States, and his work has been shown at venues as diverse as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Paris's Musee du Louvre. In the Survey, California-based art historian and critic John C. Welchman exmaines Kelley's relationship to 1970s post-Minimalism, American popular cultures, 1980s appropriation and the conceptual vernacular of the 1990s.

Details

Personalities

Kelley Mike

Type

Book

Place of publication

London

Year

2002

Number of pages

160 pages

Language

English

ISBN

9780714838342

Open stacks or available on request

Available on request

Illustrations

Yes

Bibliography

Yes

UDC code and author sign

709.203 Kel

Volumes

1

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