Lot 130†
Mike Kelley(American, born 1954)Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #5 (Sick Vampire) 2004/2005
signed to a label on the backboard
piezo print on paper and chromogenic print
101.6 by 160.7 cm.
40 by 63 1/4 in.
Executed in 2004/2005, this work is number 4 from an edition of 5.
signed to a label on the backboard
piezo print on paper and chromogenic print
101.6 by 160.7 cm.
40 by 63 1/4 in.
Executed in 2004/2005, this work is number 4 from an edition of 5.
19 October 2011, 13:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £15,000 inc. premium
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Mike Kelley (American, born 1954)
Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #5 (Sick Vampire)
2004/2005
signed to a label on the backboard
piezo print on paper and chromogenic print
101.6 by 160.7 cm.
40 by 63 1/4 in.
Executed in 2004/2005, this work is number 4 from an edition of 5.
2004/2005
signed to a label on the backboard
piezo print on paper and chromogenic print
101.6 by 160.7 cm.
40 by 63 1/4 in.
Executed in 2004/2005, this work is number 4 from an edition of 5.
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Gagosian Gallery, New York
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2008
"Monstrosity is fascinating and attractive"
The artist in Interview Magazine, February, 2011
Mike Kelley's interest in the Gothic has been well documented; indeed his first essay to appear in print (in the now defunct LA journal Spectacle) was titled Urban Gothic. But while his fascination with the Romantic side of Gothic has led him to explore the work of William Beckford, Joris-Karl Huysmans and H.P. Lovercraft, the Gothicism that we find in Sick Vampire is something different altogether, something relating more directly to one of Kelley's other great passions, namely the Hollywood movie. With an obviously synthetic wig and theatrical pan-stick white makeup, these two characters (actually a photograph sourced from a high-school year book mirrored by a later reconstruction) owe more to the B-movies of Bela Lugosi or the Hammer productions of Christopher Lee than the literature of Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley; perhaps not surprising from an artist who described the crumbling, post-apocalyptic wastelands of Alien and Eraserhead as 'our version of the Gothic Castle falling into ruin' (Mekanik Destruktiv Kommandöh. Survival Research Laboratories and Popular Spectacle, Parkett no.21, 1989, p.122).
