Judson Church Horse Dance (2011, 70min) with introduction by curator Catherine Wood

The following films will be shown in a loop:

The Banana Man (1983, 28min)

Family Tyranny (Modeling and Molding), with Paul McCarthy (1987, 8min)

Blind Country, with Ericka Beckman (1989 19min)

A Dance Incorporating Movements Derived from Experiments by Harry F. Harlow and Choreographed in the Manner of Martha Graham (1999, 8min)

Out O' Actions, with Paul McCarthy (1998, 4min)

Superman Recites Selections from 'The Bell Jar' and Other Works by Sylvia Plath (1999, 7min)

The Bridge Visitor (Legend-Trip) (2004, 17min)

Mike Kelley (1954–2012) produced, in his 35-year long career, a body of work mining American popular culture and questioning modernist traditions, set against his self- and social examinations. His practice ranges from drawing on paper to sculpture, performances, music, video, photography, and painting. When asked about his path into art, Kelley replied,

“My entrance into the art world was through the counter-culture, where it was common practice to lift material from mass culture and ‘pervert’ it to reverse or alter its meaning… Mass culture is scrutinized to discover what is hidden, repressed, within it.”

Themes such as American class relations, sexuality, repressed memory, systems of religion and transcendence, and post-punk politics are explored in his manifold practice. These subjects are often brought forth in a notorious, abundant, self-deprecating humor.

Catherine Wood er seniorkurator ved Tate Modern. Hun organiserte Anne Imhof: Sexfor the Tanks at Tate Modern i 2019 og 2020-utstillingen, Our Bodies Our Archives av Faustin Linyekula, Okwui Okpokwasili og Tanya Lukin Linklater. Wood var kurator for Robert Rauschenberg-retrospektivet på Tate Modern i 2017 og initierte Tate Moders årlige Live Exhibition in the Tanks, som har inkludert verk av Fujiko Nakaya og Isabel Lewis (2017) og Joan Jonas og Jumana Emil Abboud (2018). Tidligere utstillinger inkluderer A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance (2012) og The World as a Stage (2007) på Tate Modern. Siden 2003 har hun vist kunstnere som Mark Leckey, Joan Jonas, Otobong Nkanga, Sturtevant og Boris Charmatz, og hun initierte det elektroniske kringkastingsprosjektet BMW Tate Live: Performance Room i 2011. I tillegg kuraterte Wood Yvonne Rainer: Dance Works for Raven Row i London i 2013, og er forfatter av Yvonne Rainer: The Mind is a Muscle (Afterall / MIT Press, 2007) og Performance in Contemporary Art (Tate Publishing, 2018).

Bilde: Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York and the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Los Angeles.