Mike Kelley - Editions & Works on Paper New York Thursday, February 15, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “My entrance into the art world was through the counter-culture, where it was common practice to lift material from mass culture and ‘pervert’ it to reverse or alter its meaning… Mass culture is scrutinized to discover what is hidden, repressed, within it.”
    —Mike Kelley

     

    The bright-red customized elements of Mike Kelley’s three-part still-life sculpture conjure an alter-ego of the artist as a member of a bowling league. Fabricated for the piece, these seemingly common commercial items feature mysterious personalized details. The bowling ball has no holes and is engraved with the artist’s signature. The XXL shirt is monogrammed above the chest pocket, with the artist’s signature stitched in black thread and its mirror image stitched in white. On the back of the shirt and on the bowling bag is a hand-designed emblem of a genie’s lamp with a small puff emerging from its spout. Flanked by two crossed paintbrushes dripping with paint, its handles read “Death, Knowledge, Life, and Guilt,” while the lamp itself is inscribed with the letters “X-C,” connoting a Christogram, or Christian monogram. This darkly humorous assemblage perhaps alludes to Kelley’s Roman Catholic upbringing in a working class suburb of Detroit, while also suggesting the cultural distance between bowling leagues and art museums.

    – Rhode Island School of Design Museum

    • Literature

      Ars Publicata, Mike Kelley, 1991.01

98

Lot offered with No Reserve

Bowling Ball, Bag, Shirt and Catalog

1991
The complete set of four objects including a customized bowling shirt with artist's stitched name, bowling ball, bowling bag and book, with accompanying bowling ball stand.
bowling bag 11 x 7 x 14 in. (27.9 x 17.8 x 35.6 cm)
book 10 x 8 1/2 in. (25.4 x 21.6 cm)
shirt Extra Large

The ball engraved with signature and numbered 7/50, published by A.R.T Press, Los Angeles.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$1,000 - 2,000 

Sold for $762

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 15 February 2024