For this last artist research, I really wanted to find an artist that I could look to for inspiration and ideas for my final installation project. For a refresher, I am planning on creating an installation environment that plays off the idea of nostalgia and how it compares and contrasts from others’ by replicating a day home from school. I find the whole idea of nostalgia very interesting, especially when dealing with art and I am sure I’m not the only one. That’s when I stumbled upon Mike Kelley, an Installation/Sculpture artist who deals a lot with nostalgia and “Repressed Memory Syndrome” in his art.
Mike Kelley was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1954. He received a BFA from the University of Michigan, and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. He creates a wide array of art forms ranging from sculptures, to wall-size drawings, to multi-room installations that re stage institutional environments. His work tends to exemplify nostalgia and questions the legitimacy of “normative” values and systems of authority. One piece of work of his that really stuck out to me was his Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction which was built off his “Educational Complex” sculpture project from 1995. In this exhibition, he creates an environment that best replicates memories from his childhood and growing up in an institutional school culture. I thought that this was such a good example for what I am trying to do in my final. The picture below is very similar, design wise, in how I want to set my environment up.
This one below is of the original “Educational Complex” sculpture that replicates similar ideas, but also deals with “Repressed Memory Syndrome” when taking into consideration of all the school shootings that had spurred around that time (i.e. Columbine).
Artist Statement:“I still think the social function of art is that kind of negative aesthetic. Otherwise there’s no social function for it.”
