Mike Kelley: Bad Boy | Art21 "Exclusiva"

Episode #117: Mike Kelley sets the record straight about being called a "bad boy" throughout his career, describing the shifting tastes of critics and artists towards abject art in recent years.

Mike Kelley's work ranges from highly symbolic and ritualistic performance pieces, to arrangements of stuffed-animal sculptures, to wall-sized drawings, to multi-room installations that restage institutional environments (schools, offices, zoos), to extended collaborations with artists such as Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler, and the band Sonic Youth. His work questions the legitimacy of 'normative' values and systems of authority, and attacks the sanctity of cultural attitudes toward family, religion, sexuality, art history, and education. He also comments on and undermines the legitimacy of the concept of victim or trauma culture, which posits that almost all behavior results from some form of repressed abuse. Kelley's aesthetic mines the rich and often overlooked history of vernacular art in America, and his practice borrows heavily from the confrontational, politically conscious "by all means necessary" attitude of punk music.

Learn more about Mike Kelley: http://www.art21.org/artists/mike-kelley

VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Norbert Arnsteiner & Nancy Schreiber. Sound: Stacy Hruby & Ullrich Vlasak. Editor: Paulo Padilha. Artwork Courtesy: Mike Kelley. Special Thanks: MUMOK, Vienna.

Mike Kelly: El Chico Malo

Ahora no tanto, pero al principio de mi carrera
era considerado un chico malo

una y otra vez. Chico malo, chico malo, chico malo
pero nunca me he considerado un chico malo

No creo que mi trabajo haya tratado nunca
sobre ser un chico malo

o un adolescente arrogante o esto o aquello o sobre ser un anti-intelectual.

Claro que no soy un anti-intelectual pero siento que estos términos han ayudado a ponerme en mi sitio

porque mi trabajo no encajaba en los cánones populares del momento.

Simplemente era una crítica barata.

Porque se me asociaba con este llamado movimiento artístico despreciable, donde las ideas descarriadas

entraron en las discusiones artísticas, y porque en muchas de mis obras habia influencias de

las llamadas formas menores, como el arte folclórico o la cultura de clases bajas.

Creo que muchas críticas a mi trabajo confunden mi uso de