Mike Kelley's Kaleidoscope of Madness at MOCA

I visited the Geffen Contemporary Museum of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art with my friend Teri yesterday.  We viewed the extensive collection of over 250 of his art works that include drawings, sculpture, performance, music, video, photography and painting.  As the program states he explored themes of American class relations, sexuality, repressed memory,  and systems of religion.

Kelley was born in suburban Detroit, Michigan in 1954 and lived and worked in Los Angeles from the mid-1070's until his death at the age of fifty-seven in 2012.  Here is a little bit of what we saw:

This exhibit quotes philosophers about life.  At the end of the hall is a drawing by a man on death row waiting to be executed.

"More Love Hours Than Can Every Be Repaid"

"Black Out," 1999-2001.  This is a large sculpture of the astronaut John Glenn for the 200th anniversary of his hometown, Detroit.  The surface is encrusted with pieces of broken ceramics, glass and other debris dredged from the Detroit River.

"Memory Ware" 2003, with everyday objects including shells, beads, buttons, pins, jewelry and other keepsakes.  

"In Memory of Camelot," 2000

"Seven Star Cavern," 1999

Kelley created this sign familiar outside of many towns across the country showing the clubs active in the community.  The name of this town is Tross City with the first letters covered.  Kelley had said it is an imaginary city that sounds like the work "atrocity."  Some of the club names are interesting such as The Anti-Christ Fan Club and Ding Dong School.