Stopgap Measures: Writings on Mike Kelley 1986-2023

Stopgap Measures presents an exciting selection of essays,

interviews and shorter pieces on the work of American artist

Mike Kelley (1954-2012) written over more than three

decades by the noted art historian and cultural critic John

C. Welchman.

Kelley's provocative career gave rise to some of the most

conceptually and materially diverse work of recent times-

in performance, writing, painting, drawing, sculpture, banners,

multimedia installation, appropriated objects and

images and video, as well as numereous collaborations.

This volume includes reflections on specific works, and features

a signature series of pathbreaking essays on Kelley's

innovations in photography and writing as well as explorations

of major themes in his practice, research and thinking:

physical comedy and verbal humor; memory; popular

culture, dress-up and Americana; the uncanny; imaginative

projection and dark fantasy; appropriation and giving;

authorship and self-construction; and the artist's littleremarked

upon negotiation with the histories of and ideas

about Asia. The book concludes with new essays on Kelley's

engagement with animals and the nonhuman; and on the

refrain disappearances that punctuate Kelley's career set

in relation to specters of social catastrophe and nuclear

annihilation.