MIKE KELLEY: PHOTOGRAPHS, SCULPTURES

Wako Works of Art, 2009, First edition, 64 pp., 8 3/4" X 11 1/2", Softcover

Fine

A scarce catalogue published on the occasion of the 2009 exhibition Mike Kelley: Photographs / Sculptures at Wako Works of Art in Tokyo, this catalogue features full color illustrations of six never before shown photographic series and a new body of sculptural works. A number of self-portraits from 1987 mimic turn-of-the-century spiritualist photography, and depict Kelley exuding “ectoplasm” in the form of cotton and smoke from different parts of his head. A subsequent series of photographs shot through a Vaseline-coated lens features dancer and choreographer Anita Pace enveloping her nude body in scarves embellished with Irish-American and Heavy Metal iconography, a reference both to Vaseline’s function as a sexual lubricant and to the soft-focus, romantic symbolism of early pictorialist photography. These are followed by a 1996 series depicting sinister-looking amorphous globules and puddles, photographs that Kelley sees as “overt attempts at applying the aesthetics of of painterly biomorphic abstraction to photography”. Kelley’s groupings of sculptures, entitled “Kandors”, recreates different versions of the futuristic city rendered in the Superman comic books. Also featured is an essay written by Kelley to accompany the exhibition, and a number of poetic texts printed alongside the photographs.