Stopgap Measures
presents an exciting selection of essays,
interviews and shorter pieces on the work of American artist
Mike Kelley (1954–2012) written over more than three
decades by the noted art historian and cultural critic John
C. Welchman.
Kelley’s provocative career gave rise to some of the most
conceptually and materially diverse work of recent times—
in performance, writing, painting, drawing, sculpture, banners,
multimedia installation, appropriated objects and
images and video, as well as numereous collaborations.
This volume includes reflections on specific works, and features
a signature series of pathbreaking essays on Kelley’s
innovations in photography and writing as well as explorations
of major themes in his practice, research and thinking:
physical comedy and verbal humor; memory; popular
culture, dress-up and Americana; the uncanny; imaginative
projection and dark fantasy; appropriation and giving;
authorship and self-construction; and the artist’s littleremarked
upon negotiation with the histories of and ideas
about Asia. The book concludes with new essays on Kelley’s
engagement with animals and the nonhuman; and on the
refrain disappearances that punctuate Kelley’s career set
in relation to specters of social catastrophe and nuclear
annihilation.
