
MIKE KELLEY
MIKE KELLEY
AS AN ART STUDENT, I had seen a few reproductions of works from Paul Thek’s “Technological Reliquaries” series, 1964–67, and was quite taken with them. But it was the catalogue for Thek’s “Processions” exhibition at Philadelphia’s Institute of Contemporary Art in 1977 that really turned my head around and made me rethink my sculptural practice. I was already interested in performative sculpture; the artists Joseph Beuys, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, and Tetsumi Kudo, in particular, interested me because of their embrace of poetic mythmaking and their use of everyday materials. Thek’s