Mike Kelley

Jablonka Gallerie, Cologne/Berlin
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2007

This work is in very good and sound condition overall. All the electronic components appear to be in good working order. There are some light surface abrasions and other signs of handling to the edges and sides of the frame. There are some small plastic pieces stuck in between the frame and the hologram around the edges, which also appears inherent to the installation. Please note this work will need an adaptor to work with US electrical outlets.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Celebrated during his career as an artist who consistently challenged boundaries and moved thrillingly beyond a conventional art historical dialectic, Mike Kelley’s work re-evaluated quotidian articles - from bird houses to stuffed toys - through an utterly unique and highly distinctive artistic language. Kelley utilized an astonishing variety of different media, including painting and drawing as well as video, sculpture and installation to create an eclectic corpus in which an often mordant humor mingled with an innovative and frequently unexpected use of materials, constantly seeking and re-inventing new modes of creative expression. Holland Cotter provided a sense of the remarkable breadth of Kelley’s work in a review of a major retrospective of the artist’s work which opened in October 2013: “Kelley did it all, in terms of genre… And he wove together - twisted together - all of that into what amounted to a single conceptual project based on recurrent themes: social class, popular culture, black humor, anti-formalist rigor and, though rarely acknowledged, a moral sense, unshakably skeptical, that ran through everything like a spine.” (Holland Cotter, ‘This Show’s as Big as His Career,’ The New York Times, October 18, 2013, n.p.)

Dating from 2007, Lenticular 15 forms part of one of Kelley’s most significant mature series, entitled Kandor. Inspired by the iconic comic book tales of Superman, Kelley found the source for this series in the legend of Kandor, the city on Superman’s home planet of Krypton which escaped destruction by being encased in a bottle in a miniature version of its urban grandeur. Kelley was intrigued that the various depictions of Kandor which recurred within the comic book strips were inconsistent in appearance and form, and chose to re-create different versions of the city in three-dimensions: exquisitely formed tiny cities within glowingly colored glass jars. In a further fascinating development on the theme, the comic book source images of the city were modified by Kelley with respect to color and shape then re-created within the format of a lightbox - of which the present work is an accomplished example – allowing for fascinating distortions of light and form. Ken Johnson has noted the immense importance of the Kandor series within Kelley’s work: “In the Freudian terms that Kelley himself favoured, I imagine that Kandor represents a grown-up’s fantasy of childhood as a blissful golden age: an idealizing vision that represses memories of real-life suffering. Viewed sociologically, Kandor is the crystal city of Modernism, the utopian culmination of enlightened reason.” (Ken Johnson, ‘An Intellect Highly Developed, but Not Superman,’ The New York Times, August 16, 2012, n.p.)