• Deutsch
  • English

participating artist

MIKE KELLEY

kelley


Mike Kelley: Kandor Con 2000, 1999/2005
Multimedia Installation
ca. 600 x 1500 x 1500 cm
Falckenberg Collection Hamburg
© Mike Kelley
Photo: ONUK

The following text is included in the press release accompanying the exhibition "MIKE KELLEY. KANDORS" [Jablonka Galerie Berlin, September 29 - December 22, 2007]. Copyright: Mike Kelley, Courtesy Jablonka Galerie Köln/Berlin

According to the Superman mythos is the fictional city of Kandor, the capitol of Superman's home planet Krypton the only remaining vestige of the exploded Krypton, and the city is preserved, in a reduced state, in a bottle in Superman's possession. Interestingly, the image of Kandor was never codified and the numerous representations of it in the comic book throughout the years vary widely in appearance. In this exhibition Kelley reconstructs ten unique versions of Kandor, with its enclosing bottle, which, despite obvious differences, purport to depict the same city. Thus, Kandor – as an eternally maintained, but constantly reconfigured, relic of Superman's childhood – is an apt symbol of Kelley's interests in the vagaries of memory, and relates to his own works that refer to Repressed Memory Syndrome, such as Educational Complex (1995), an architectural model made up of replicas of every educational institution that the artist ever attended, with the sections he cannot remember left blank. Such issues were foregrounded in an earlier work by Kelley that also focused on the theme of Kandor: Kandor-Con 2000, which was presented at the exhibition "Zeitwenden" at the Kunstmuseum Bonn in 2000.  



MIKE KELLEY

born 1954 in Detroit, Michigan
lives and works in Los Angeles

 
Biography

1976
BFA University of Michigan

1978    
MFA, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA

1998    
The University of Michigan School of Art and Design Distinguished Almnus Award

2000    
The California Institue of Arts Distinguished Almnus Award

2003    
John Simson Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship

2006    
Wolfgang Hahn Preis


Selected Exhibitions


2007
Kandors, Jablonka Galerie, Berlin
Skulptur Projekte Münster 07, Münster
Collateral: When Art Looks Like Cinema.  Hangar Bicocca, Milano, Italien
Make Your Own Life:  Artist’s in and Out of  Cologne. Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami

2006   
Profondeurs Vertes, Musée du Louvre, Paris

2005    
Goetz Meets Falckenberg. Sammlung Falckenberg Kulturstiftung Phoenix Art,  Hamburg
Day Is Done, Gagosian  Gallery, New York

2004   
Mike Kelley, Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris
Mike Kelley: The Uncanny.  Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England.  Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Luwig Wien, Wien

2002   
Mike Kelley: Reversals, Recyclings, Completions, and Late  Additions. Metro Pictures, New York
Mike Kelley: Selected Works 1982-1990. Skarstedt Fine Art, New York