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mike kelley · moca · MW · News · Mar 30, 2014

Mike Kelley retrospective at MOCA

Last Friday, I attended the media preview for the Mike Kelley retrospective at MOCA and it’s amazing–the biggest showing of the much-loved L.A.-based artist’s work ever. It started with an assortment of short speeches, starting off with new MOCA director Philippe Vergne calling it a homecoming after debuting at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and making stops in Paris and New York. Mary Clare Stevens, Executive Director of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts described the artist’s personal involvement in the show’s evolution and Ann Goldstein, the former director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and exhibition curator, added that the show began as related to theme but shifted to chronology upon the artist’s death in 2012.

MOCA Curator Bennett Simpson emphasized MOCA’s history of supporting the artist (who was part of the museum’s “First Show” and has been in almost 30 more including one that he curated) and added that the current stop includes a Chinatown-related piece that has never been shown in Los Angeles before. Framed and Frame (1999) is located on the upper floor, and challenges the audience with concepts of context but also alludes to the Downtown L.A. area’s punk rock history via sex and drugs paraphernalia mixed in with the traditional wishing well icons.

Another large piece is Kandors (2007-2011), a collection of sculptures of Superman’s hometown reimagined from various comic book pages. The reference to the alien city, shrunken by the iconic hero’s arch-enemy Braniac and kept under glass, is esoteric to many but is folklore to hardcore comic book readers. Kelley created a video installation mashing up the four-color hero with the goth poetry of Sylva Plath, but never realized his plan to introduce the Art Forum scene to the Comic-Con crowd online.

Art · mike d · moca · transmission LA · Apr 23, 2012

MOCA Transmission LA

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Say what you need to, but the show is exciting and fun. Perhaps it does take the DJ event and a crowd. How does it fare with no one in the galleries? Regardless it’s supposed to be 17 days of DJing and it’ll bring out a crowd. The best thing? It’s Ben Jones. The video above. It was a fun transformation of a space. Some of the “artist” might not really make sense, but that’s how it goes. This is a new formation of what a museum can be…

Art · barry mcgee · espo · Features · graffiti · moca · reas · steve powers · street art · todd james · twist · Videos · May 09, 2011

Street Market II – video tour MOCA – Art in the Streets

[youtube]kySsodNxIKs[/youtube] I shot this without the intention of turning it into a film, but I figure there’s so many of you out there who won’t be able to make it to MOCA – Art in the Streets. This is another way to see it. In my opinion the “Street Market II” is the best part of the entire exhibition. The three, Barry McGee, Todd James, and Steve Powers – TWIST, REAS, ESPO respectively, made an effort and succeeded in creating an actual environment, so I isolated it into it’s own video. No where else in the exhibition did I feel that I was being pushed into a very different space. Street Market? There definitely is a place that deserves such a name and it’s at MOCA. On a side note, when the first Street Market took place in Philadelphia, I was invited to go by Mr McGee himself. Perhaps I should have gone, but Todd James did say, “this is even better!” I may post more video from the rest of the exhibition, but again, this part is my favorite.