Turning his hand to whatever medium he likes – over the past 12 months he’s mounted a painting show at Gagosian and delivered a noisy performance at Performa, for example – Mike Kelley continues to make his punkish presence felt, revealing America’s creepy underbelly in a way that looks as easy as pumpkin pie.
This year Kelley had his first major exhibition on home turf in LA for nearly ten years, when A Voyage of Growth and Discovery, his collaborative exhibition with Michael Smith, toured to public space West of Rome. Mobile Homestead (2010), an ambitious public project that will see a replica of his childhood home make a journey from midtown Detroit to the suburbs where Kelley grew up, is the artist’s first public project anywhere in the world to result in a permanent installation. It’s proof of his continuing ability to remain on the perceived fringes while creating work that is undeniably significant, and which has a wide and lasting influence.