Mike Kelley. Eternity is a Long Time

HangarBicocca, the contemporary art space promoted and supported by Pirelli, presents Mike Kelley: Eternity is a Long Time. The exhibition, spectacular and intimate at the same time, offers an unprecedented opportunity to approach and examine the work of the late Mike Kelley (Detroit, 1954–Los Angeles, 2012), focusing on his installations, videos, and sculptures mainly from 2000 to 2006, a period of enormous creative maturity in his career. The works included are of great intensity and perfectly represent the complex, visionary universe of the artist, who is considered one of the most influential figures in contemporary art and a role model for the new generations of artists.

The exhibition interacts with the entirety of vast industrial spaces of HangarBicocca, with a series of fundamental works that have rarely been shown in public such as Light (Time) – Space Modulator, 2003 and Profondeurs Vertes, 2006. The works have been loaned by some of the leading international institutions and collections, including the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, Los Angeles; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; Goetz Collection, Munich; Collezione La Gaia, Busca; Rennie Collection, Vancouver; and the François Pinault Foundation in Paris and Venice.

Curated by Emi Fontana, a Mike Kelley expert and independent curator based in Los Angeles, and Andrea Lissoni, curator at HangarBicocca, Mike Kelley: Eternity is a Long Time, has been conceived as a way of coming to grips with the artist's complex and highly diverse body of work, while simultaneously creating the opportunity to examine the fascinating web of cultural aspects and autobiographical memories that are engrained in his art. These include his relationship with education, his links with modernist architecture, his view of the tradition of painting and of American literature, and his approach to the vernacular, popular culture, youthful initiatory rites and styles of musical subcultures.

The exhibition is arranged in an open, non-chronological order, which underlines the sense of continuity in Mike Kelley's art. It also shows how he was able to enter with the most amazing freedom and eclecticism into different expressive genres, ranging from installation to sculpture, through to performance and video, sound and drawing.

HangarBicocca and the curators would like to acknowledge the generosity of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts and the numerous lenders who have made the exhibition, Mike Kelley: Eternity is a Long Time, possible.

Curated by Emi Fontana and Andrea Lissoni

Mike Kelley
Eternity is a Long Time
curators: Emi Fontana, Andrea Lissoni