Kelley Mike - Mike Kelley : educational complex

One Work is a unique series of books published by Afterall, based at Central Saint Martins in London. Each book presents a single work of art considered in detail by a single author. The focus of the series is on contemporary art and its aim is to provoke debate about significant moments in arts recent development.

Over the course of more than one hundred books, important works will be presented in a meticulous and generous manner by writers who believe passionately in the originality and significance of the works about which they have chosen to write. Each book contains a comprehensive and detailed formal description of the work, followed by a critical mapping of the aesthetic and cultural context in which it was made and has gone on to shape. The changing presentation and reception of the work throughout its existence is also discussed, and each writer stakes a claim on the influence their work has on the making and understanding of other works of art.

The books insist that a single contemporary work of art (in all of its different manifestations), through a unique and radical aesthetic articulation or invention, can affect our understanding of art in general. More than that, these books suggest that a single work of art can literally transform, however modestly, the way we look at and understand the world. In this sense, the One Work series, while by no means exhaustive, will eventually become a veritable library of works of art that have made a difference.

This is a book I could not have written without the help of those who knew Mike Kelley, those who worked with him and those who are committed to a more comprehensive understanding of his work. I am grateful to all who have offered their assistance. My daughter, Carmen Rosenberg-Miller, helped me with a particularly onerous endnote. Janelle Reiring at Metro Pictures made the gallerys records available to me and augmented them with her personal recollections. Thomas Crow, Branden W. Joseph and Howard Singerman read various drafts and generously provided me with insights and opinions. Kim Colin, Michael Cook, Sam Durant, T. Kelly Mason and Dave Muller explained their roles in producing Educational Complex and shared their direct understanding of the work itself. Mary Clare Stevens, who for many years managed Kelleys studio and now serves as Executive Director of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, not only helped guide my research, but also graciously opened the foundations archives to me. Finally, Nicols Guagnini, Bob Nickas and Aura Rosenberg, as all three so often do, read my work thoroughly and spoke to me at length about it. Their comments and criticisms have been invaluable.

The editors would like to also express their gratitude to the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Michele OMarah and Mary Clare Stevens for their vital support during this project and their help in providing materials from the artists archive.

John Miller is an artist, a critic and a teacher. He has published three anthologies of criticism: The Price Club: Selected Writings (19771998) (Les Presses du Rel, 2000), When Down Is Up (Revolver, 2001) and The Ruin of Exchange (JRP | Ringier, 2012). His essays have been published in Artforum, Grey Room, October and Texte zur Kunst. Miller has taught at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles; Yale University, New Haven; and Columbia University, New York. Since 2000 he has taught at Barnard Colleges Art History Department in New York, where he currently is Professor of Professional Practice.

Miller met Mike Kelley at CalArts in January 1978. They remained close friends and colleagues until Kelleys death in January 2012.

One Work Series Editor

Mark Lewis

Afterall Books Editorial Directors

Charles Esche and Mark Lewis

Editor

Caroline Woodley

Managing Editor

Gaia Alessi

Associate Editor

Line Ellegaard

Copy Editor

Deirdre ODwyer

Research Assistant

Damien OConnell

Other titles in the One Work series:

Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous

by Jan Verwoert

Hollis Frampton: (nostalgia)

by Rachel Moore

Ilya Kabakov: The Man Who Flew into Space from his Apartment

by Boris Groys

Richard Prince: Untitled (couple)

by Michael Newman

Joan Jonas: I Want to Live in the Country (And Other Romances)

by Susan Morgan

Mary Heilmann: Save the Last Dance for Me

by Terry R. Myers

Marc Camille Chaimowicz: Celebration? Realife

by Tom Holert

Yvonne Rainer: The Mind is a Muscle

by Catherine Wood

Fischli and Weiss: The Way Things Go

by Jeremy Millar

Andy Warhol: Blow Job

by Peter Gidal

Alighiero e Boetti: Mappa

by Luca Cerizza

Chris Marker: La Jete

by Janet Harbord

Hanne Darboven: Cultural History 18801983

by Dan Adler

Michael Snow: Wavelength

by Elizabeth Legge

Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel

by Amna Malik

Richard Long: A Line Made by Walking

by Dieter Roelstraete

Marcel Duchamp: tant donns

by Julian Jason Haladyn

General Idea: Imagevirus

by Gregg Bordowitz

Dara Birnbaum: Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman

by T.J. Demos

Gordon Matta-Clark: Conical Intersect

by Bruce Jenkins

Jeff Wall: Picture for Women

by David Campany

Jeff Koons: One Ball Total Equilibrium Tank

by Michael Archer

Richard Hamilton: Swingeing London 67 (f)

by Andrew Wilson

Martha Rosler: The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems

by Steve Edwards

Dan Graham: Rock My Religion

by Kodwo Eshun

Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Room Phallis Field

by Jo Applin

Michael Asher: Kunsthalle Bern, 1992

by Anne Rorimer

Hlio Oiticica and Neville DAlmeida: Block-Experiments in Cosmococa program in progress

by Sabeth Buchmann and Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz

Sanja Ivekovi: Triangle

by Ruth Noack

Rodney Graham: Phonokinetoscope

by Shepherd Steiner

Lee Lozano: Dropout Piece

by Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer

Philip Guston: The Studio

by Craig Burnett

Thomas Hirschhorn: Deleuze Monument

by Anna Dezeuze

One persons utopia can be anothers nightmare. Ever since Thomas More coined the term from the Greek roots ou (not) and topos (place) as the title of his novel of 1516, it has carried contradictory yet overlapping meanings: that of a no place and that of a perfect place. This contradiction implies that perfection can only ever be imaginary. Platos Republic (c.360 BCE) is the first written example of what now may be considered a utopian scheme. Plato proposed dividing society into a set structure, from lowest to highest, of iron, bronze, silver and gold social classes. At the top, the gold citizens were to enrol in an extended educational programme that ultimately would yield enlightened leaders. Plato saw education as the basis of social hierarchy.