Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit at Tate Modern

The idea that an artist’s work increases in value after their death is well-established in the art world, often attributed to the cessation of production, increased scarcity and the fortification of the artist’s legacy over time. But for Mike Kelley, who had already made a substantial impact in contemporary art before his tragic passing in 2012, time and memory have added more than just equity to his complex and often challenging body of work. In the month of Halloween, famously Kelley’s favourite holiday, Tate Modern’s curatorial team captures his spirit with the first major survey exhibition of the American artist in the UK.

“A ghost is someone who disappears, but a spirit is a memory that remains, an energy that has lingering influence,” wrote Kelley in his unrealised script Under a Sheet/Existence Problems (sic) – a distinction that would guide historians navigating his legacy and shape the exhibition in question. His wide-ranging practice explores the ghostly nature of memory, particularly how the past haunts the present. The passage of time has imbued these themes with even greater poignancy, as his legacy has become an integral part of the art world’s cultural memory, with Kelley finding his place in the same liminal space between presence and absence as the spirits in his art.

Opening with his early pieces from his time at CalArts, the first room is haunted by The Poltergeist (1979) – a series of seven photo texts that play on the association of photography with truth, drawing from both faked spiritualist photographs of the 19^th-century and the kitschy elements of low-budget 70s horror films. This theme is echoed later in the similarly structured Timeless / Authorless (1995), where Kelley’s exaggerated and derogatory language is printed in a blown-up newspaper format alongside high school yearbook photographs, prompting further examinations of the nature of memory. 

Just as newspapers and pixelated film have become a distant memory to most, a bleak and often forgotten facet of childhood – where growing up coincides with outgrowing – is explored in Kelley’s famed installation, More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid (1987). The ghosts of childhood innocence and trauma – ragged, hand-made dolls and blankets that Kelley found in thrift stores – populate this haunting composition, highlighting the emotional and physical weight these objects carry even after they have outlived their original purpose. They seem to follow us to the aptly-named video installation Superman Recites Selections from “The Bell Jar” and Other Works by Sylvia Plath (1999). By merging the poet’s poignant prose words with the immortal, iconic imagery of the ultimate superhero, Kelley revitalises Plath’s memory rather than merely preserving, adding another spirit to his eclectic collection.

Christina Yang
Image: © Mike Kelley Foundation for theArts. All Rights Reserved/VAGA at ARS, NY and DACS, London 2024

Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit is at Tate Modern from 3^rd October 2024 until 9^th March 2025. For further information or to book visit the exhibition’s website here.