Mike Kelley at MoMA PS1

The full-museum retrospective on the late Mike Kelley at MoMA PS1 opened a few weeks ago.  I attended the opening in my self-made Kelley-inspired pom pom jacket, but it's taken me a few weeks to develop my feelings about the show and begin to understand the overwhelming experience.


First of all, it is not an exhibition that can be confronted in one visit.  There is just too much -- so many extremely different, opposing mediums and ideas -- that it requires more than one sojourn in order to begin to even scratch the surface of the meaning and intent of Kelley's oeuvre.


Kelley created work that spanned a 30-year career in almost every medium imaginable: assemblage, film, works on paper, painting, sculpture, digital, installation, and on and on.  Much of this work deals with themes of isolation, repressed memory, sexuality, self-exploration.  My personal favorite work is Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites (1991), which I planned ahead to emulate with my pom pom jacket.

However, one of the most poignant pieces in the exhibition is Lumpenprole and Ageistprop (above).  A vast knit blanket stretched across the floor, concealing unidentified lumps beneath it, this work is the perfect example of Kelley's interest in repressed memory, and the way he consistently returned to previously explored themes throughout his widespread career.  While I was viewing the work, another museum attendee held his iPhone poised at the ready in order to catch the movement of the mysterious shapes (spoiler alert: they don't move).  This anecdote is a perfect example of my experience of the show: the feeling that there is something lurking around the corner that could change or develop at any moment, without notice.

Jacket: DIY

Dress: H&M

Shoes: United Nude

Clutch: Betsey Johnson

Photos by Kathy Paciello; Lumpenprole image from hamptonartshub.com.

KEITH HARING

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Keith Haring: 1978-1982 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.  I've always been enamored by the scope and reach of Haring's work, produced in such a short time span.

I briefly discussed Haring's work before here, but the Brooklyn Museum exhibition was the first time I'd experienced such a wide range of media.  Haring's classic imagery such as the radiant baby and barking dog were well represented, but there were also a number of unfamiliar pieces that provided new insight to his work as a whole.

Central to the exhibition was a selection of party photos from the Keith Haring archives that showcased Haring's involvement in the East Village club culture, as well as his association with other artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf.  In addition, excerpts from Haring's journals gave insight into his artistic process.

A particularly poignant piece in the exhibition is a film that I saw for the first time, Painting Myself Into a Corner, from 1979.  The work is an excellent example of the way that Haring's work, life, and essentially, his being, overlapped.

Before his death in 1990, he founded the Keith Haring Foundation, which provides funding and imagery to AIDS organizations, and has continued Haring's legacy of social and political awareness with a sense of humor.

I'm wearing a Keith Haring x Patricia Field dress, United Nude shoes, and an H&M necklace.

Keith Haring: 1978-1982 is on view at the Brooklyn Museum through July 8.
Visit their website for more information and interaction, including a playlist meant to accompany the exhibition.