ArtWorthy 11:
Mike Kelley

ArtWorthy07.03.2025

Guess The Value

MIKE KELLEY (1955-2012)
Memory Ware Flat #42
signed, dated 2003 and numbered 42 (on the reverse)
mixed media on panel, in artist's frame 76.25 × 52.25 × 4 in.
(193 × 132 × 10.2 cm.)

Mike Kelley's Memory Ware series references 19th C. North American folk art traditions in which found objects are embedded into household items such as jugs using plaster or clay. After encountering the technique at an antiques fair in 2000, Kelley began to create sculptural works and flat compositions with dense relief surfaces of varying shapes and concentrations, producing an all-over patterning that references artists like Georges Seurat while examining the assertions of Abstract art."

Memory Ware Flat #42 exemplifies Kelley's fascination with recontextualizing objects of nostalgia. The composition features an array of trinkets, beads, and personal artifacts including nametags reading "Cordill, "Charlie Bull, peninsula Banjo Band, "John Mutschler, and "Universal Studios, Ann," alongside clapperboard and camera-shaped pins that evoke themes of identity and representation. Curator Alan Schwartzman notes this work as "the most strikingly unique of the series in its dark monochrome," distinguishing it from other Memory Ware.

The work comes from the collection of pioneering gallerist Barbara Gladstone, who spent over four decades championing artists, shaping the landscape of contemporary artists. It was included in Kelley's 2012 retrospective which traveled from the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam to the Pompidou Paris, MoMA New York and MoCA, LA in 2014.

It is coming to auction at Sotheby's New York on May 15, 2025, with an estimate of $600,000
- $800,000

What will it sell for?

Image: Mike Kelley (1955-2012), Memory Ware Flat #42

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