From Here to Eternity. Spotlights on the memory of Mike Kelley

Eternity is a Long Time. A sentence pronounced by the quivering voice of a man who is going to leave this world hand by hand with his beloved; a recurrent refrain, stuck in mind, that slightly returns passing by all the artworks, as a revelation and a déjà vu. This autobiographical approach takes us through the ten installations selected by Andrea Lissoni and Emi Fontana for Mike Kelley’s show at Hangar Bicocca in Milan, a small retrospective that pays a tribute to the extraordinary plurality and complexity of his work.
The exhibition focuses on the last production of the artist with a selection of artworks made between 2000 and 2006 – the season of his artistic maturity – when he was devoted to the conception of complex installations, mixing up different languages and media. Moving away from the most shared approach in showing Kelley’s work, this exhibition avoids to fill in the space with a dense congregation of contents, images and suggestions, encouraging a loose access to the artworks: every piece is like an island floating in the light darkness of the Hangar’s wide space, a magnetic field acting forces of attraction and repulsion, giving the chance to access the different levels of that layered knowledge and to make personal connections among the artworks.
There is something uncanny along the bare room of Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #1 (A Domestic Scene), as well as in the empty rooms of those buildings – all the schools Kelley attended – drawn digging back into his memories, maybe the same spectres projected upside down in the room of Light (Time) – Space Modulator, turned in contrast with the Constructivist structure into entertaining pictures. In this circular game of cross references what emerge are suggestions for forward-looking interpretation, a path around several themes less investigated within his production, such as his relation to education, the return to teenage years and their myths, the shadow of dismissed memories, the connection with contemporary art and its history.
Eternity is A Long Time outlines a profile of Mike Kelley that takes a critical distance from the myths generated around his figure by the art world in the last decade, showing his erudite and intimate side: a great contribution to this perspective has been given by Emi Fontana, Italian curator based in Los Angeles, whose personal knowledge of the artist – with whom he collaborated for more than fifteen years – has prominently influenced the artworks’ choice. Here Kelley’s imaginary is disclosed unmasked, rendering through a tangled network of connections and revelations a peculiar language which has not qualms in matching an erudite art to the vernacular aspect of crafts and popular culture, and in bringing to light what we’re probably going to miss the most about this overwhelming artist: his restless seek for what lies at the very deep basement of contemporary American culture, never looking down on it from his privileged role of artist, but rather keeping the awareness of being part of it.

Mike Kelley, Eternity is a Long Time, Hangar Bicocca, Milan through September 8, 2013

Mike Kelley, Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #1 (A Domestic Scene), 2000, François Pinault Foundation. Installation view, Eternity is a Long Time, Hangar Bicocca, Milan. All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved. Courtesy Fondazione HangarBicocca. Photo Agostino Osio

Mike Kelley, Installation view, Eternity is a Long Time, Hangar Bicocca, Milan. All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved. Courtesy Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo by Agostino Osio

Mike Kelley, John Glenn Memorial Detroit River Reclamation Project (Including the Local Culture Pictorial Guide, 1968-1972, Wayne/Westland Eagle), 2001, Rennie Collection, Vancouver. Installation view, Eternity is a Long Time, Hangar Bicocca, Milan. All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved. Courtesy Fondazione HangarBicocca. Photo Agostino Osio

Mike Kelley, Light (Time) – Space Modulator, 2003. Commissioned by CCAC Wattis Institute, San Francisco, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna. Installation view, Eternity is a Long Time, Hangar Bicocca, Milan. All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved. Courtesy Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan Photo Agostino Osio

Mike Kelley, A Continuous Screening of Bob Clark’s Film “Porky’s” (1981), the Soundtrack of which has been Replaced with Morton Subotnik’s Electronic Composition “The Wild Bull” (1968), and Presented in the Secret Sub-Basement of the Gymnasium Locker Room (Office Cubicles), 2002, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Installation view, Eternity is a Long Time, HangarBicocca, Milan. All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved. Courtesy Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan Photo Agostino Osio

Mike Kelley, Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstructions #6, 7 (Woods Group), 2004-2005, Goetz Collection, Monaco. Installation view, Eternity is a Long Time, HangarBicocca, Milan. All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved. Courtesy Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan Photo Agostino Osio

Mike Kelley, Light (Time) – Space Modulator, 2003. Courtesy the artist/ TBA21 Compound Temporal Conflation (Horizontal) 2002/2003 (Double Exposure Mike/Girl) Color Photograph. Eternity is a Long Time, Hangar Bicocca, Milan. All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved.

Mike Kelley, Video still from Rose Hobart II, 2006. Wood, metal, carpet, acrylic paint, with video projection, sound. Eternity is a Long Time, Hangar Bicocca, Milan. Courtesy Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts All Mike Kelley works © Estate of Mike Kelley. All rights reserved.