Mike Kelley American, b. 1948

Mike Kelley (1954 – 2012) was a groundbreaking American artist whose multidisciplinary practice reshaped contemporary art. Born in suburban Detroit and later based in Los Angeles, Kelley worked across sculpture, installation, performance, video, painting, drawing, photography, sound, music, and writing—challenging distinctions between high and low culture.

Over his thirty-five year career, he worked in every conceivable medium - drawings on paper, sculpture, performance, music, video, photography, and painting - exploring themes as diverse as American class relations, sexuality, repressed memory, systems of religion and transcendence, and post-punk politics, to which he brought both incisive critique and abundant, self-deprecating humor.