MIKE KELLY (and his collabortaion with PAUL MCCARTHY) (b.1954) is an american artist from detroit and living in LA. Through his installations, videos and sculptures Kelley has taken the multiple roles of artist, curator and critic. One notable example, is his 1992 piece entitled "The Uncanny". In this work, he investigates and contributes an aesthetic perspective to the definition of the Freudian term. This work is "an installation within and installation" and consists of multiple rooms, large figurative sculptures and vitrines full of collections. The exhibition is complemented by a catalogue combining works found in the show with other works by contemporary artists on the same theme. For this publication Kelley wrote an essay entitled ‘Playing with Dead Things: On the Uncanny’ which focuses on the aspects of the Freudian uncanny that interest him: The inanimate object made animate and vice-versa, the repetition-complusion instinct and how it relates to his collections, and finally 'the abject' in art or art that provokes visceral reactions of disgust.
He collaborated with Paul Mccarthy in 1992 to make a video entitle 'Heidi' which acts out many of these ideas of abject-hood and repulsion, mask, automatons and the repressed in general.
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