The artist Mike Kelley has died at the age of 57, it was widely reported Feb 1. One of the most influential American artists of his generation, Kelley was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. Authorities are currently investigating the death as a possible suicide. Known for works incorporating sculpture, assemblage, installation, film and sound, Kelley formulated a vital and distinctive aesthetic that drew from the underbelly of American social structures and the cultural and expressive anxieties generated by those structures. He was to be featured in an upcoming solo exhibition at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, and was among the artists selected for this year’s Whitney Biennial. Born in a suburb of Detroit in 1954, he was a founding member of the noise band Destroy All Monsters before moving on to study at the California Institute of Arts.
Kelley was represented in Japan by Tokyo’s Wako Works of Art, where he had his last solo exhibition in 2009, and was also included in 2008’s 3rd Yokohama Triennale, where a fragment from his massive multimedia installation, Day is Done (2005), was on view in the Shinko Pier warehouse venue.