A large and dense tapestry-like piece hangs on one of the walls of the Tate Modern, in London. You don't need to look too closely to spot various handmade, knitted, crocheted, and sewn objects, including stuffed animals, dolls, and other soft, textile-based items.
Ranging from cute to slightly eerie and plainly disturbing, the items are haphazardly stitched or attached to the base fabric, creating a chaotic and overwhelming visual collage. To the left of the wall piece, a round table holds an assortment of wax-like objects, some resembling candles.
This is the well-known mixed-media assemblage artwork by the late artist Mike Kelley entitled "More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin" (1987). The piece explores themes of domestic labor, craft, emotional investment, and value, particularly in relation to sentimental, handmade objects, while the piece on the table suggest ideas of sacrifice or offering.
Kitsch and craft elements are combined here with deeper conceptual undercurrents, emphasizing the emotional labor embedded in the creation of such objects, commenting on how these efforts can go undervalued or unrecognized, while also pointing at consumption.
The piece, part of the Whitney Museum of American Art collection, is currently on display at the Tate Modern where the first major UK survey exhibition dedicated to the American artist, "Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit" (until 9th March 2025), has just opened.
Born in 1954, Kelley explored throughout his career and employing a wide variety of techniques - from drawings and collages to performances and multimedia installations - themes of memory, emotional labor, and the relationships between high and low culture.
His "dark pop art," as described by Tate Modern, was inspired by popular and underground culture, as well as philosophy, literature, and history.
The inspiration for "Ghost and Spirit" comes from an unproduced script by Kelley called "Under a Sheet/Existence Problems," found in his archive. In the script, Kelley explores the idea of a ghost that vanishes while a spirit remains.
"A ghost is someone who disappears, an empty concept. A spirit is a memory. I’m a ghost, I have disappeared. I've disappeared, but survive in others," the artist, who took his own life at the age of 57, wrote in the script. These reflections echo his lifelong fascination with absence, ritual, roles, and identity - strongly shaped by his Catholic upbringing.
The ghost theme is also reflected in Kelley's early performance materials, which open the exhibition, displayed in chronological order. In his seven-part piece "The Poltergeist" (1979; created as part of a collaborative exhibition with artist David Askevold), Kelley is seen emitting a strange, ethereal substance from his nose, evoking the early 20th-century spiritualist photography.
"The Monkey Island Project" (1982-83) and "Half a Man" (1987-91) introduce Kelley's use of craft objects in his art. He viewed craft as an act of resistance against modernist painting and sculpture, which he saw as inherently masculine.
Instead, Kelley chose to create felt banners and sculptures using everyday objects like handmade stuffed toys and crocheted blankets, beads and pearls, aiming at evoking a sense of the uncanny in the ordinary. Worn, second-hand, and often dirty toys were transformed into colorful, playful arrangements, as seen in "More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin" (1987) and in "Ahh...Youth!" (1991). The latter is especially famous for featuring the orange crocheted alien used on the cover of Sonic Youth's 1992 album "Dirty".
Kelley first began using soft toys to comment on consumer culture and forced entertainment. The toys, once used by children and later discarded, symbolized indeed physical pleasure and gratification. However, according to the artist, critics saw something darker in these discarded items, interpreting them as references to child abuse and trauma, including possible connections to Kelley's own experiences. Instead of rejecting these interpretations, Kelley embraced them, shifting his focus to the theme of trauma.
Kelley eventually "killed" the animals in "Craft Morphology Flow Chart" (1991), laying sock monkeys and knitted toys on folding tables like lifeless bodies.
Kelley's status evolved from rebellious artist to recognized authority, especially after his 1993 exhibition at the Whitney. By the mid-1990s, his focus shifted toward exploring architectural spaces. One of his major works, "Educational Complex" (1995), is represented in the exhibition through images, as the original piece is too fragile to display.
This large sculpture resembles a dystopian city and includes models of his childhood home in Westland, Michigan, as well as the schools he attended - from kindergarten through high school, and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California.
This project stands apart from the rest of Kelley's work, both stylistically and formally, appearing almost forensic in nature. It blends architecture with memory and trauma, as Kelley deliberately left out parts of the buildings he couldn't recall during the reconstruction process. The implication was that any forgotten details pointed to repressed trauma. The fact that Kelley couldn't remember 80% of the buildings, suggested these locations were tied to deeply buried experiences.
The impact of this monumental project is further explored in related works like "Sublevel" (1998), based on the basement of CalArts, where Kelley studied in the 1970s, and "Relationships Rendered as Fluid" (2002), two hanging mobiles and their accompanying drawings that explore how architectural space connects to memory.
Kelley's fascination with architecture also surfaces in the "Kandors" series (1999–2011), though in a more fantastical form. These works feature illuminated, crystalline models of Superman's hometown on planet Krypton, crafted from colored glass and often housed under glass domes. Together, they form haunting cityscapes hinting at the psychological depths of this iconic American superhero.
The exhibition concludes with Kelley's later installations such as his monumental multi-part exploration of memory "Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstructions" (2000-2011), where Kelley recreated events from high school yearbooks, capturing scenes of extracurricular activities. These include videos of a chaotic nativity play and Halloween-themed entertainment, transformed into musical, theatrical, and sculptural installations.
It's here that one realizes that, although Kelley is often linked to the grunge era through his association with Sonic Youth, his true inspirations stem from the 1960s and 1970s - the decades of his youth when he absorbed both mainstream culture and the countercultures of the time - from his passions including comics and UFOs but also from his Irish American, Roman Catholic upbringing (the Virgin Mary is a recurrent figure in his work).
Maybe textile designers may find unexpected inspirations beyond his famous works involving stuffed animals and soft toys or integrating plastic beads.
Fashion designers may instead find something else: we've already seen banana boots on Charles Jeffrey Loverboy's runway, and you can bet that Kelley's yellow sailor suit with slits and a long piece of white fabric attached to the groin area from his "Banana Man" (a children's TV character he only heard about) performance, will at some point make an appearance on a Loewe or JW Anderson runway. Who knows, perhaps the slogans from his banners, like "F*ck You … Now Give Me a Treat Please" or "Bend Over," might one day appear on T-shirts or totes (well, Sonic Youth's album cover with Kelley's artwork is a popular print for T-shirts...). After all, fashion is a kind of ritual, and there's a ritualistic quality to Kelley's work.
As a whole, the Tate Modern exhibition can be appreciated on multiple levels: some visitors may be drawn to the material aspects of Kelley's art, while others may be more interested in its conceptual depth.
That said, upon entering the exhibition, viewers should be prepared for Kelley's twisted and dark humor, a sort of perverse delight, that evokes the rebellious spirit of adolescence and that often slips into the uncanny, the chaotic, and the alienating. So there's a caveat for viewers since, while this unsettling experience may reward some with a unique form of dark satisfaction, it may not resonate with everyone.
Image credits for this post
1 and 2. Mike Kelley at Tate Modern, installation view featuring "More Love Hours than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages of Sin", 1987. Photo: Lucy Green
3. Mike Kelley at Tate Modern, installation view, featuring "The Poltergeist", 1979. Photo: Lucy Green
4. Mike Kelley, "Ahh...Youth!", 1991. Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All Rights Reserved/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2024
5. Mike Kelley at Tate Modern, installation view featuring "Memory Ware Flat #17", 2001. Photo: Lucy Green
6. Mike Kelley at Tate Modern, installation view featuring "Half a Man" project. Photo: Lucy Green
7. Mike Kelley at Tate Modern, installation view, "Monkey Island" project. Photo: Lucy Green
8. Mike Kelley at Tate Modern, installation view featuring "Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction series", 2004-5. Photo: Lucy Green
9. Mike Kelley, "City 13 (AP 1)", 2011. Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All Rights Reserved/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2024. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen
10. Mike Kelley, "Kandor 16B", 2010. Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All Rights Reserved/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2024. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen
11. Jim McHugh portrait of Mike Kelley as The Banana Man, c.1983, with (in the background) Last Tool in Use, 1977. Enamel 73.7 × 55.3 × 7.6. Photo © Jim McHugh
12. Mike Kelley at Tate Modern, installation view - featuring "The Banana Man Costume", 1981-2, and "Hierarchical Figure", 1989. Photo: Lucy Green
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