Mike Kelley: Materialist Aesthetics and Memory Illusions

A critical appraisal of Mike Kelley’s politics of culture as expressed in his visual art and writings

American artist Mike Kelley (1954-2012) was the mastermind behind some of the most bizarre and instantly recognizable artistic projects of the 1990s. Dedicated as he was to visual art, Kelley was also an insightful theorist who wrote prolifically about his own creations as well as the historical context in which he worked. His writing reveals a matrix of deeply felt theories regarding the aesthetics of the 1980s, ‘90s and 2000s, and his concern with victim culture and repressed memory syndrome.

This book presents a new perspective on the life and work of the artist, assessing his personal philosophy via art as well as writing. Art historian Laura Lopez Paniagua places Kelley’s work in conversation with the theories of thinkers such as Georges Bataille, Walter Benjamin, Pierre Bourdieu, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Through Paniagua’s transdisciplinary approach, Kelley’s oeuvre emerges as a stance based in materialist aesthetics.