November 25, 2005

• Rehearsing Hell

  Art critic Michael Kimmelman
  in today’s New York Times:

  The Los Angeles veteran Mike Kelley’s latest show is a sprawling,
  scabrous spectacle of noisome installations and hilarious videos,
  occupying the whole of the cavernous Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea.
  Ingratiating Mr. Kelley’s work never has been, nor is it now. But
  serious it is, in its brainy, abrasive, black-humored way, and this is
  by far his most ambitious and perversely entertaining effort, an
  attempted Gesamtkunst-werk of satanic rituals and advertising jingles
  mingled with allusions to Godard, German Expressionist cinema and
  Stockhausen….
      A teenage girl dressed like a hillbilly recounts
  a nonsense parable in the manner of H. P. Lovecraft crossed with William Faulkner
  as part of a faux-reality show….
     
  Did I mention the church confirmation in
  which a plump female communicant morphs into a devil worshiper, and
  teenage boys dressed in Nazi outfits suddenly rap about sex with fat
  women?….
       … Mr. Kelley’s deep roots are in the performance tradition going back to the Vienna Actionists.

  For descriptions of the Vienna Actionists, do a Google search.

  From yesterday:

  Angels
    Even devils too
    Wait to show
  How far we come
  To joy

  – Chris Whitley, “To Joy    
  (Revolution of the Innocents)” –
  mp3 and lyrics.

  It seems that Mike Kelley and Michael Kimmelman are among Chris
  Whitley’s “devils.”  Let us hope that they enjoy the company of
  General Augusto Pinochet (see previous entry) in the afterlife.

  Related material: Art Wars and The Crimson Passion.

  • 3:48 pm
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