Being part of a marginalised community isn’t easy. And it’s not something the majority of us can relate to, because, you know, that’s the nature of being the majority. But Mike Kelley could understand. The late American artist emerged from the same Michigan punk scene as The Stooges, making music and eventually art. He moved to LA in the 1970s and flitted between the commercial art scene and the subcultures he’d come from; he knew the collectors and the gallerists, but he was friends with the punks, the hobos and the freaks.
Marginalised communities and Kelley’s relationship to them were at the heart of his work. This double installation starts with a recreation of a Chinatown gate, enclosed in steel fencing and barbed wire, with spotlights watching over the whole thing. It’s an immigrant community held prisoner, a captive animal in a zoo.
Then next door there’s a globby outcropping of grey sludge, dotted with kitsch figures of Christ and religious trinkets. It’s a sloppy concrete wishing well where cultures, hopes and aspirations have collided into a gritty mess. Under the structure there’s a mattress, a plate and some condoms. The whole thing manages to be pretty but harsh, exploring big issues such as immigration and homelessness as well as personal ones.
These are recreations of sites that were important to Kelley. This is where he hung out, where he lived with his friends, where he may have slept. Personal, universal, touching and angry, we need Kelley’s art more than ever.