MIKE KELLEY
The only social function of art is to fuck things up.
NARRATOR
That’s Mike Kelley. He was a musician. A poet. A teacher. And an artist.
STERLING RUBY
I’m Sterling Ruby. I was Mike’s teaching assistant at Art Center, for a number of years while I was doing my graduate studies. I knew Mike quite well and this is one of those tongue-in-cheek, not quite sure if it is seriously spiritual or mockingly cynical. This was Mike’s strength as an artist.
This Kelley work is hand-painted acrylic on paper. It has then been superimposed using six parts, making it a collage-oriented work. Like a quilt, this seemingly formal painting is loaded with content.
[AUDIO DESTROY ALL MONSTERS]
STERLING RUBY
“Infinite Expansion” reads as space, time and death…
Pathologically Mike was loaded like his work and that could be extremely exciting, sometimes super-goofy, but often it was traumatic. I think that Mike is definitely one of the artists who wore his kind of heart on his sleeve and made work about the confusion of who he was.