Destroy All Monsters at Prism Gallery

Lee Foley — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:19:26 +0000

Mike Kelley, Mall Culture, 2000 Acrylic on canvas, 96 x 138 inches, Courtesy of Prism Gallery

In the 1970’s, a typical suburban youth wouldn’t conceive of declaring a new art movement. A more natural mode of rebellion would be to start a band. At Prism Gallery in West Hollywood, Mike Kelley curates the first retrospective of work by the original artists in Destroy All Monsters. “Return of The Repressed: Destroy All Monsters, 1973-1977,” presents Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, Niagara and Jim Shaw as members of an experimental band and art collective. This expansive exhibition highlights a rich archive of prints, drawing and photography, including several mural-sized paintings, which commemorate influential figures in their collaborations.

The collection of ephemera conjures a vision of the quartet tinkering in the basement of an old Victorian. They’re making lewd noises while inventing mutations of pornographic models and comic book characters. In 1970’s Ann Arbor, Michigan, the four artists manipulated tropes of a band to unleash a ritualistic, “combination of accident, fumes and frenzy.” These are words Kelley uses to describe Jim Shaw’s method of spray painting on collage. In the spirit of Dada, DAM employed found material to disassemble pop-culture, pre-existing social structures and contemporary art critique. For example, in a performance project called Futurist Ballet, Jim Shaw created flyers advertising fake lectures, which were posted around the University of Michigan campus. When a few colleagues would get duped into attending, “D.W. Janson on Zoroastrian Symbolism in Duchamp’s Large Glass,” they would be confronted with a loosely planned, guerilla performance. Destroy All Monsters did not ignore the boundaries of conceptual art or music genres, but it reacted to them. The structure of a band also gave its members a contextual grounding for their individual practices.

Installation View, Courtesy of Prism Gallery

There is no soundtrack in the gallery to distract from the visual rhythm created by the cacophony of images. This two-story exhibit displays Xerox collages, pages from zines, photography and drawings, vaguely divided into quadrants dedicated to each artist. The quantity of archived ephemera produced from 1973-1977 is oddly disproportionate to their limited notoriety as a musical group. Kelley redefines DAM, instructing us to view the experiment as a visual art collaboration, rather than as a band. The show is less like a retrospective than the long-delayed realization of a youthful ideal, the mature culmination of the group’s vision.

Mike Kelley, Untitled (Allegorical Drawings), 1976/2011, Pigment prints on German Etching paper, 14 x 9 1/2

Today, music and concepts of memory continue to play a key role in Mike Kelley’s practice. He produces soundtracks for many of his video installations, including, Exploded Fortress of Solitude, a solo exhibition at Gagosian earlier this year. Destroy All Monsters developed Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, Niagara and Jim Shaw as artists by allowing them the freedom to react with messy spontaneity to the changes in their world. A Kurt Vonnegut quote comes to mind: “It strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that man can always solve his problems. This is so untrue that it makes me want to cry— or laugh.” DAM gave these artists permission to do both.

A 312 page catalogue from, Return of The Repressed: Destroy All Monsters, 1973-1977, is available at Prism Gallery.

Performance Art as Revisionist History

Lee Foley — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 12:18:15 +0000

Installation View, The Murder of Hi Good, 2011

“The Murder of Hi Good” is Lee Lynch’s first solo exhibition at Steve Turner Contemporary. The focus of the exhibition is a video that plays on a loop, in an installation that makes you feel as if you are part of an early-American Freemason convention. In a narrative format, “The Murder of Hi Good,” contributes to a revisionist history of the American west, at the same time inviting the viewer into a performance that contemplates the use of historical references and objects in contemporary visual art.

Written and directed by Lee Lynch, “The Murder of Hi Good” introduces Hiram Good, residing in a small cabin in Tehama county after he has retired from a career as an “Indian hunter.” Friends, grateful to Good for protecting their farms from “renegade” Native Americans, affectionately call him “Boone of the Sierras.” In 1870, a few members of the Mill Creek tribe, referred to by Hi Good as “Diggers,” still live in small groups in the wilderness, surviving as best they can after a nearly genocidal takeover of their land. Hi Good purchases a half-Indian boy named Ned to keep as an indentured servant. Ned assists him in all tasks, from shaving Hi Good’s chin to hunting down the Native Americans who steal an occasional sheep from their ranch. These everyday interactions lead to misunderstandings and increase the tension until Hi Good is killed.

How is this video installation different from a dramatic re-enactment or a PBS documentary? Though Lynch pays fanatical attention to historic detail, he also liberally interprets, using ceramics, fur covered masks, and performative iterations of leisure time in the old west. Hanging on the back wall of the gallery, Lynch paints what could be a scene from the film, entitled, “The Boone of the Sierras,” in the style of a 19th century American genre painting. The actors, though young for their roles, play their parts convincingly. Lynch, through his in-depth knowledge of the time period, and prophetic vision, constructs a complex visual poetry that ponders the costs of white settlement.

Installation view, The Murder of Hi Good, 2011

It’s not necessary to watch the whole film or follow the narrative to engage with the performative rituals which are at the center of “The Murder of Hi Good.” A major portion of the film is devoted to a celebratory sequence of Hi Good and Ned participating in the secret rites of what seems to be a covert meeting of Freemasons. Throughout, characters become deeply involved in tantalizing spectacles. Performance artist Marnie Weber plays the role of a mystic girl conjuring spirits. Through Ned’s eyes you percieve how far the white settlers have wandered from their own notions of virtue; they have become lost in their own invented rituals, a residual effect of a strong belief in Manifest Destiny. The scene ends with a rhythmic song emanating from three Mill Creek native women, who have been taken hostage.

Installation view, The Murder of Hi Good, 2011

Lee Lynch’s presentation of the Murder of Hi Good links historical research and narrative film to a contemporary art context, encouraging the viewer to participate in this visual and ritualistic re-recording of America. After lingering in the gallery for a time, I was desperate to look at a bibliography. I wanted to fact check, I wanted to dance, I wanted to use paint and ink to be a part of history in the making.

Be sure to attend the Conversation with Lee Lynch and Marnie Weber, taking place Thursday, October 6, 7:30PM at Steve Turner Contemporary.

Artcards Review » Lee Foley

Destroy All Monsters at Prism Gallery

Performance Art as Revisionist History