Visual art / Music
Mike Kelley
1954–2012 · artist, musician
Influential installation artist from suburban Detroit whose Mobile Homestead, a replica of his childhood home, stands permanently at MOCAD.
- Born
Wayne, Michigan- Died
South Pasadena, California
aged 57- Birth name
- Michael Kelley
- Detroit years
- 1954–1976
- Field
- Visual art, Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Kelley was born in Wayne and grew up in neighboring Westland, a working-class suburb of Detroit built for families of Big Three autoworkers, in a Catholic household. Detroit's late-1960s rock scene, from the MC5 to the Stooges, shaped his sense of rebellion. At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor he co-founded the noise band Destroy All Monsters in 1973 with Niagara, Jim Shaw and Cary Loren, and he graduated in 1976 before leaving for CalArts in Los Angeles. His stuffed-animal sculptures, banners, drawings and installations dug into class, religion and American youth culture, and his Educational Complex (1995) modeled every school he had attended. For Detroit he conceived Mobile Homestead, a full-size copy of his family's ranch house that could detach and travel the city; it was completed after his death in 2012 and now stands behind the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit as a community gallery.
Highlights
- Co-founded the proto-punk noise band Destroy All Monsters in Ann Arbor (1973)
- Mobile Homestead (2010–13): his only public artwork, permanently at MOCAD
- Educational Complex (1995) modeled his Michigan schools
- Works in the DIA, MoMA, the Whitney and the Centre Pompidou
- University of Michigan School of Art Distinguished Alumnus (1998)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Memorial · 2010–2013
MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit)
Full-scale replica of his Westland childhood home, a permanent artwork and community gallery at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
Studied here · 1972–1976
University of Michigan
Where he studied art, graduating in 1976, and formed Destroy All Monsters.