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MIKE KELLEY: Right now I'm working on about the

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30th tape in a projected series of 365.

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And so, it's supposed to be one tape

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for every day of the year.

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[rhythmic drumming and clapping]

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[women screaming]

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[rhythmic drumming and clapping]

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I knew by the time I was a teenager

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that I was going to be an artist.

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There was no doubt about that.

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There was nothing else for me to be.

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I think coming out of Catholicism,

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I have a real interest in ritual.

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I mean, ritual is beautiful,

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but I never was a believer.

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Yet...

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I think my interest in art all along

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has been in trying to develop a kind of

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materialist ritual.

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And I see all art as being

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a kind of materialist ritual.

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When I first started working

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with stuffed animals,

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I was responding to a lot of the

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dialogue in the '80s about

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commodity culture.

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But I was really surprised that

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when everybody looked 
at these works I made

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they all thought it was about
child abuse

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Now, that wasn't anything I expected

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and not only did they think, 
it was about child abuse,

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they thought it was about my abuse.

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So I said, well that's really interesting,

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I have to go with that.

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I have to make all my work about my abuse,

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and not only that,

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about everybody's abuse,

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like that this is our shared culture.

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This is the presumption

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that all motivation is based

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on some kind of repressed trauma.

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My work is very reactive.

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I'd make something,

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I get a response that I'm not...

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...I had no idea I was going to get,

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I don't reject it; I embrace it.

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I run with it, y'know?

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That tells me what to do.

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I decided to go back to

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my originating trauma, which was

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my student training,

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and so I took all these drawings

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that I did in college

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as an undergraduate, which are perversions

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of Hoffmanesque compositional principles,

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and I relearned to paint that way.

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And I did this series,

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this is the first series 
of paintings I did

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in this regressive manner.

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They're called "The Thirteen Seasons."

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They're oval-
I broke from the rectangular form

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because the oval, again, has no end.

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And so it's eternal.

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It's eternally recurring abuse.

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In this kind of trauma literature,

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the parts you can't remember is called

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"missing time" and then you recover it.

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Because I work so much

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with various kinds of tropes-

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and they're image tropes or music tropes

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or performative tropes,

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it interests me to try to

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bring them into my system

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in certain ways, y'know, incorporate them.

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It's part of this whole process

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of working through things.

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Things start simple and get more complex.

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Sense always comes after the fact

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in my work-

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to make it, at first glance, acceptable,

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like I've seen some of that before 
or I understand that.

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So it has to operate on multiple levels.

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It has to be

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available to the laziest viewer

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on a certain level...

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and then on a more sophisticated

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viewer as well.

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I think what I make is beautiful.

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I think it's beautiful because

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terms are confused and divisions between

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categories start to slip.

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And that produces,

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what I think is a sublime effect,

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or it produces humor,

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and both things interest me.

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And I...

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I guess I'm interested in a kind of

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sublime play or sublime humor.

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-- Well, behind-

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Behind the mule is a man,

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and then the fake horse.

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- Oh, that's better.

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- That's even better.
- Kelley: Yeah.

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- You got a man in there to fill up the
gap, that's better.

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- The man is the pitchfork demon?
- Kelley: It's the pitchfork guy.

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- Stan? It's Stan, if you could get him.

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- And tell him not to swing his pitchfork
around.

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- Kelley: Yeah, do something like that.
Stomp, stomp, stomp.

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[whinnies]
And then go.

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"Day Is Done"--
the project I'm working on right now,

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is kind of built around a mythos

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that relates to an earlier sculpture I did

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called "The Educational Complex," which is

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a model of every school I ever went to,

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plus the home I grew up in,

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with all the parts 
I can't remember left blank.

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- I think I want to try it
when these cheerleaders get to about here,

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to give me a big scream,

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you know like, "Whoa!"

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Like that's the most wonderful thing
you've ever seen.

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- The audience should do a big scream?

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- Should they raise their arms like that?

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- Kelley: No, no, just, just...
well, let see it

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Let's hear a big "Wha!"

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ALL: Whoooo!

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- Kelley: Yeah, arms is good. 
Lift the arms up.

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Whoa!

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ALL: Whoa!

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- Action!

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[drum cadence playing]

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- Kelley: All these videos are based
on high school yearbooks.

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It's not because I have any interest

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in high school or high school culture,

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but it's one of the few places

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where you can find photographs
of these kinds of rituals.

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- Kelley: Stand this way, a little bit.
Yeah, let's go for it.

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- Kelley: It's really close.

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- Man: It won't be the same.
- Kelley: OK, it's fine.

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The-, the image is the same.

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- Man: The image is...
- Kelley: The relationships are the same.

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Almost all of this comes from writing,

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and...

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and then later I tried to say, well,

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how can it be visually interesting?

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It has narrative elements, but it's...

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not straight narrative.

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- Kelley: Cut!

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[laughs]

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- Woman: Good job, Stan!

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All the writing is...
is associative,

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and it comes from my own experience, but

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it's very hard to, 
say, to disentangle memories

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of films or books or cartoons or plays

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from "real experience."

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It all gets mixed up.

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So in a way I don't make 
such distinctions.

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And I see it all as a kind of fiction.

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- I can't walk by myself!
I'm not responsible!

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- Kelley: When I was younger,

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all my writing was generated for
performance work.

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- I'm the sailor, but I don't have
sea legs, sea legs.

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But I don't walk and I don't talk.

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[whistles]

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So this project is very much

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a way for me to get back into writing and-

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because I don't have the time
just to do it.

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I have to work it into my work somehow.

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It's like music.
I-

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I didn't have time to play music anymore,

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so I had to make a project

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that had to have music in it, so

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I forced myself to make music.

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[Kelley playing on electric organ]

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- Kelley: Never had any musical training.

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I grew up in a household 
where there was really,

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very little interest in music, and

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they didn't teach music in school.

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And, um... I

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grew up on rock and roll music, 
and all the

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musicians I knew were self-taught.

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I've been playing noise music for

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many, many years.

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But this project's really different

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because this is like no other music 
I've ever done,

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because it's all based on really,

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typical forms, but

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I know enough about that
where I can fake it.

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And, I mean, I don't know what I'm doing. 
Say, I can't say, oh that's this chord

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or that's this note 
but I know what it sounds like.

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And so we can piece it all together

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and it's believable.

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- Am I gonna to hear the, uh...

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the orchestra sample too?

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- Man: Uh, yeah, you'll hear,
you'll hear what you just did.

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- Kelley: OK.
- Man: Here we go.

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- Kelley: With the computer,

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we can do everything ourself.

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We don't need to get an orchestra;

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we can...

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do all the editing here.

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We can make films by ourselves.

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[cymbals resonating]

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[drum rolls playing]

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[cheering]

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[applause]

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- Kelley: My dream is to perform it live.

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- Man: Let the final procession begin.

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- Kelley: So that 
the whole thing is performed

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like, say, in a 24-hour period,

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so the day stands for the year.

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It's very much like a passion play.

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Though a somewhat formalized
and ridiculous passion play,

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though its ridiculousness is purposeful.

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- CAST (harmonizing): ♪ Mary...♪♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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♪ Mary...♪

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- Kelley: I think that's

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the joyfulness of it.

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But then it's a black humor; 
it's a mean humor,

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so it's a critical joy.

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It's, y'know...

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it's negative joy.

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[laughs]

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But that's art, I think,

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y'know, for me at least.

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That's what separates it

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from the folk art that I'm going to,

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that I still think 
the social function of art

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is that kind of,

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negative aesthetic.

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Otherwise there's no

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social function for it.

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[women screaming]
[upbeat funky music playing]

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[clapping in rhythm]

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[applause]