Stopgap Measures presents an exciting selection of essays, interviews and shorter pieces on the work of American artist Mike Kelley (19542012) written over more than three decades by the noted art historian and cultural critic John C. Welchman. Kelleys provocative career gave rise to some of the most conceptually and materially diverse work of recent times in performance, writing, painting, drawing, sculpture, banners, multimedia installation, appropriated objects and images and video, as well as numereous collaborations. This volume includes reflections on specific works, and features a signature series of pathbreaking essays on Kelleys innovations in photography and writing as well as explorations of major themes in his practice, research and thinking: physical comedy and verbal humor; memory; popular culture, dress-up and Americana; the uncanny; imaginative projection and dark fantasy; appropriation and giving; authorship and self-construction; and the artists littleremarked upon negotiation with the histories of and ideas about Asia. The book concludes with new essays on Kelleys engagement with animals and the nonhuman; and on the refrain disappearances that punctuate Kelleys career set in relation to specters of social catastrophe and nuclear annihilation.
Stopgap Measures presents an exciting selection of essays, interviews and shorter pieces on the work of American artist Mike Kelley (19542012) written over more than three decades by the noted art historian and cultural critic John C. Welchman. Kelleys provocative career gave rise to some of the most conceptually and materially diverse work of recent times in performance, writing, painting, drawing, sculpture, banners, multimedia installation, appropriated objects and images and video, as well as numereous collaborations. This volume includes reflections on specific works, and features a signature series of pathbreaking essays on Kelleys innovations in photography and writing as well as explorations of major themes in his practice, research and thinking: physical comedy and verbal humor; memory; popular culture, dress-up and Americana; the uncanny; imaginative projection and dark fantasy; appropriation and giving; authorship and self-construction; and the artists littleremarked upon negotiation with the histories of and ideas about Asia. The book concludes with new essays on Kelleys engagement with animals and the nonhuman; and on the refrain disappearances that punctuate Kelleys career set in relation to specters of social catastrophe and nuclear annihilation.
Art is my life and my life is art . . .The story of the twentieth-century avant-garde is a story of resistance, of the outsider, of strangeness, of individual freedom, of rejecting the ordinary and overcoming marginalisation through self-invention. It is also a story that can be told through the prism of one of its most renowned figureheads: Yoko Ono.From her early life escaping aristocratic Japanese society and the horrors of World War II to adventurous and productive exile in New York, Onos work built upon the histories of Dada, surrealism, Zen Buddhism, and experimental music. A significant influence on the elusive Fluxus artistic network, she was connected to all its major personalities. Pursuing dreams of revolutionary liberation and aiming to recreate shattered post-war reality through performance, art and text, she established a legacy - despite her tumultuous personal life - as one of the most visionary artists and activists of her generation.Marking the intersection of biography, cultural history and artistic meditation, Love Magic Power Danger Bliss explores the deep history and vitality of the 20th century avant-garde movement and the inspiring, provocative figure who became its most celebrated, most misunderstood icon.