Both the title and image of this work symbolise Mike Kelley’s conceptual quest into the perceptive power of names and the possessive form, explored in his project Plato’s Cave, Rothko’s Chapel, Lincoln’s Profile, which lasted from 1985 to 1996. The project—and this specific illustration—play with the idea of using familiar, authoritative names to give new meaning and context to visual materials. Throughout the project, Kelley photographed cave structures like this to use as illustrations.
Kelley’s investigation into the significance of naming and language was provoked by the “flowery” naming of commercial colour charts, where grandiose names were given to mundane colours, alongside his education at CalArts, “where language was given precedence over the visual.” As Kelley researched further instances of peculiar naming, he discovered that cave explorers commonly photographed and named oddly shaped caves—transforming previously anonymous rock formations into objects with distinct identities through the process of naming.
“I became fascinated with the possessive form, for the possessive designates ownership.”
—Mike Kelley
The key aspect of this work lies in its ability to illustrate how language and naming can radically alter one’s perception—taking seemingly random images or objects and transforming them into structures loaded with new significance. As with Plato’s allegory of the cave, perception and understanding are central. In this particular image, the cave is no longer just a composition of rocks; when titled it instead communicates Kelley’s conceptual journey into the power of naming itself.
