Chris Burden: A Tale of Two Cities, 1981, at the retrospective Extreme Measures, New Museum. |
Three years later he first made this work, A Tale of Two Cities, with 5,000 toys. |
Darts launch over the city. So much of Burden's work is about circumstance and chance, creating structures meant to work. |
In the mid-80s, Mike Kelley, Roy Dowell, Carole Caroompas and Eugene Sturman taught Senior Thesis and Studio at the old Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design campus on MacArthur Park. This birdhouse by Kelley at PS.1/MoMA ( Link to show ) was made when he was a grad at Cal Arts. At Otis/Parsons, he'd been out of school five or six years and was marginally older than many of his students. He was a passionate teacher. It took years to realize the depth of his influence. |
He is an amazing filmmaker. Kelley's films stun perception at the core. |
Visual characterizations of individuals under social pressure sear the psyche. They go straight past analytical thought, which is surprising, given Kelley's ability to cogitate. |
Work inspired by Sister Corita Kent's seriagraph prints and social messages. Let's Talk About Disobeying! |
What really moves me in this work is the visual accuracy of emotional attachment, exactly how a kid retains information. |
Plenty of commentary on ways social institutions shape, and tame, perceptions through the tensions between desire and discipline. |
Kelley's knack for disturbing images in nascent form, with hints of Cindy Sherman's work. |
The iconic, More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid, first shown at Rosamund Felsen. |
Houses for pets.One of my favorite works in the show. Interesting with the birdhouses, and the later project to purchase his childhood home, unfulfilled at the time of his death. |
Potential inhabitants of little houses. |
The 1980s sound pieces. |
I did used to think this work was mean. It remains discomfitting but there is an empathy that makes it humorous. |
Kelley doll drawing. He was not big on "noodling" paint. He got to the point. |
The artist among other ciphers of projection. |
Earlier drawings. |
Scatological drawings, possibly from the Plato's Cave show. |
Encrusted painting. As the works accumulate, one sees classifications emerge--and the desire to classify, control, and survey. |
First saw this installation at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, 1987. |
Sentiments of lawlessness by great thinkers paired with a Wayne Gacy clown painting. Here, a detail. |
Kelley expressed impatience with process for process's sake."Why do you noodle so much," he'd ask. |
Stuffed animal meteorites with rocket-ship-desigs emit fruit-flavored scents. |
To sanitize sticky attachments, perhaps, |
But behind every facade is what one loves in rawest form. |
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