Mike Kelley
Mike Kelley was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1954. He received a BFA from the University of Michigan, and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Kelley’s work ranges from highly symbolic and ritualistic performance pieces, to arrangements of stuffed-animal sculptures, to multiroom installations that restage institutional environments. A critic and curator, Kelley has organized numerous exhibitions incorporating his own work, work by fellow artists, and non-art objects that exemplify aspects of nostalgia, the grotesque, and the uncanny. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California. In 2012, he committed suicide. There is currently a large retrospective of his work at PS1 in Queens.