Mike Kelley

February 1st, 2012 by Dan Nadel

Mike’s studio and friends said it better than I ever could. Their statement is below. I feel extremely lucky to have worked with and gotten to know Mike over the last few years. He was generous, kind, and unafraid. I learned an enormous amount from him and he was a fantastic collaborator. Beyond all that, he was a genius, and one of a handful of truly great artists of the last 50 years. His influence is deep and profound. The last time I saw him was how I’d like to remember him: Laughing and carrying on, and as gracious as can be. I’d like to be more articulate, but that’ll have to wait a bit. He died far too young and I, along with many, many others, will miss him.

“Our dear friend the artist Mike Kelley (born 1954 in Detroit) has passed away. Unstintingly passionate, habitually outspoken and immeasurably creative in every genre or material with which he took up—and that was most of them, from performance and sculpture to painting, installation and video, from experimental music to writing in a thousand voices—Mike was an irresistible force in contemporary art and the wider culture. For Mike, history existed only to be reconstructed, memory was selective, faulty and willful and life itself vibrant but often dysfunctional. We can hear him disagreeing with us. We cannot believe he is gone. But we know his legacy will continue to touch and challenge anyone who crosses its path. We will miss him. We will keep him with us.”

-Kelley Studio and Emi Fontana, Kourosh Larizadeh, Paul and Karen McCarthy, Fredrik Nilsen, Anita Pace, Jim Shaw, Mary Clare Stevens, Marnie Weber, John C. Welchman [for all Mike’s many friends near and far]