MIKE KELLEY (b. 1954) THREE PART YARN STACK

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION

Provenance
Metro Pictures, NEW YORK

Exhibited
WASHINGTON, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, MIKE KELLEY: HALF A MAN, February 20-May 19, 1991
NEW YORK, Whitney Museum of American Art, November 5, 1993-February 20, 1994 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 30-August 11, 1994 and STOCKHOLM, Moderna Museet, Fall 1994,
MIKE KELLEY: CATHOLIC TASTES,p. 249

Literature
E. Sussman, MIKE KELLEY: CATHOLIC TASTES, NEW YORK, 1993, p. 249

By 1986, Mike Kelley began to gravitate away from performance driven works to focus more on the object as the vehicle to convey his messages. Sculpture, painting and drawing had been integral elements in Kelley's performances. In his performances as well as his installations, Kelley's stance is seemingly that of an adolescent, confronting and ridiculing accepted cultural norms on a level that is at the same time crass and low brow and intellectually charged. By 1987 he had begun an on going project that he called HALF A MAN. This body of work is comprised of felt banners, black and white "Symmetrical" paintings, garbage drawings, refinished furniture and stuffed animal objects.

The present lot utilizes found stuffed animals purchased from second hand stores. Their soiled and stained surfaces serve as a record of their previous life. These records of past incarnations become integral elements to their success and their ability to illustrate specific ideas. Amanda Cruz describes this as: "Kelley's chosen toys are soiled and worn or particularly silly looking animals, the sort of playthings fashioned by loving hands for a grandchild or a neighborhood church sale. Such toys embody the sentimental ideas about childhood that many adults hold dear. Kelley desecrates this model of perfection by re-presenting toys that have been discarded after years of service. With their missing limbs, the embattled playthings thus undermine the adult notion of purity of childhood (A. Cruz describing MIKE KELLEY: HALF A MAN exhibition).

Kelley elaborates on this point by stating: "The stuffed animal is a pseudo-child a crucified sexless being which represents the adult's perfect model of a child—a neutered pet" (M. Kelley, "Three Projects by Mike Kelley at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago," WHITE WALLS, 20, p. 9).
The stuffed animal works included in the HALF A MAN project also exhibited a stylistic shift for Kelley. These works are markedly more formalist than his other sculptural efforts. By focusing on formal qualities of color, composition and structure of each work the result is an object that is created more like a painting than a sculpture.

In addition to being experiments in form and composition these stuffed animal works also delve into more intellectual ideas such as gender identity. Kelley has described these works as [addressing] the issues of gender-specific imagery and the family or more succinctly: "What it boils down to is gender bending" (M. Kelley, "Foul Perfection: Thoughts on Caricature, ARTFORUM, 27, January 1989, p. 98).

By using hand-sewn and crocheted dolls and blankets traditionally considered "women's work," Kelley borrowsafeminist strategy of presenting crafts as art to confront the hierarchies of modernism." He is examining "…the gender attributes of hard (male) and soft (female) forms and [has listed] Salvador Dali, Claes Oldenburg and Peter Saul as examples of Male artists using supposedly feminine softness so as to attack and destabilize the hard patriarchal order" (A. Cruz describing MIKE KELLEY: HALF A MAN exhibition).

Kelley's fusion of high and low cultureis heavily laden with underlying pressing intellectual and philosophical concerns. Though intrinsically tumultuous determinedly non-conformist takes pleasurein his divulgence of the "absurdities and inconsistencies" of certain accepted beliefs. It is not until we delve below the surface of the commonplace humdrum materials and unrefined construction that comprise these stuffed animal works, does Mike Kelley's biting wit become evident.