An exhibition of works by Mike Kelley will take place in Milan this summer, timed to coincide with the Venice Biennale-an exhibition in which Kelley participated twice (in 1988 and 1995). HangarBicocca, a 42,000-square-foot industrial site turned exhibition space, will host the show, which is organized by HangarBicocca curator Andrea Lissoni and the artist’s ex-girlfriend, L.A.-based independent curator Emi Fontana.
Ten large-scale works by the late American artist (1954-2012) will form “Mike Kelley: Eternity is a Long Time” (May 24-Sept. 8). The exhibition’s installations, sculpture and video, some rarely exhibited in public previously, come from collections such as the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary in Vienna, and the François Pinault Collection in Paris and Venice.
The exhibition complements a host of Kelley projects currently or soon to be on view, including a retrospective that was recently at the Stedelijk, in Amsterdam, is soon to open at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and is set to travel to New York’s MoMA PS1 and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Also, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit will open his project Mobile Homestead, a faithful replica of the artist’s suburban Detroit childhood home, on May 11.
One notable piece is the 2001 installation John Glenn Memorial Detroit River Reclamation Project (Including The Local Culture Pictorial Guide, 1968-1972, Wayne/Westland Eagle), whose focal point is a larger-than-life statue of astronaut John Glenn. Kelley, a Detroit native who attended a high school named after Glenn, covered this “monument” with ceramics and glass fragments found in a riverbed in his hometown. Also on view will be the rarely seen installation Profondeurs Vertes (2006), which uses images from well-known American paintings to comment on fear and memory.
PHOTO: Mike Kelley, John Glenn Memorial Detroit River Reclamation Project (Including The Local Culture Pictorial Guide, 1968-1972, Wayne/Westland Eagle), 2001, installation.
