WIELS Contemporary Arts Center, 12.4. – 27.7.2008

The barren title Educational Complex Onwards evokes analysis and an unsettling association with school as both an educational institution and a metaphorical torture chamber. Mike Kelley initiated his critique of the educational system in 1995, prompted by widespread assumptions that his prolific work—especially his stuffed animals—stemmed from a disturbed developmental process. In 1983, McMartin Preschool made headlines for allegations of child abuse, captivating America’s media and, subsequently, society, which reveled in the scandal’s exposure. The case, centered on the preschool in the upscale Manhattan Beach, became one of the longest legal battles in American history, lasting a decade.

“My original fascination revolves around the controversies in repressed memory syndrome,” Kelley stated. Drawing from his own fragmented memories of childhood, school, traces of indoctrination, and even sexual abuse, he attempted to reconstruct the schools he attended. Predictably, this endeavor failed. Kelley began anew, relying on old photographs and floor plans. The resulting “image” offers neither objective perception nor biographical accuracy—a deliberate artistic choice. Instead, the disjointed and disturbing tone of his reconstructed biography aligns with Kelley’s deep interest in philosophical and psychological systems, as well as their banalization in the media-saturated consumer society built on facts and pseudofacts.

The Educational Complex, launched in 1995, aggregates into a pseudobiographical space—an expansive work of art that traverses all expressive possibilities, from ciphered sketches to theatrical performances, minimalist sculptures, and nostalgic compositions. In its poetic and abstract form, the work blurs the lines between reality and fiction. Exhibited at WIELS, the Center for Contemporary Art in Brussels, the Educational Complex fascinates and disturbs, offering a sensual and intellectually challenging experience. Between post-minimalist barbarism and baroque spectacle, Kelley creates a staged turmoil of probabilities and illusions, where cultural and social systems undergo scrutiny and exaggeration. Visitors are faced with two options: to retreat in fear or engage with the abysmal subtlety and liberating illumination of Kelley’s exploration of social, artistic, and biographical norms.

At the core of the project is the reconstruction of all the schools Kelley attended, culminating in the Educational Complex (1995), an ensemble of architectural models where blank spaces signify memory holes. Surrounding these models, video installations, spatial scenes, and photographic sequences merge into a cosmos of possible documents and theatrical inventions. In this multilayered spectacle, the visitor’s mood reflects the cruel clichés of social theater. The most unsettling representation of the educational system’s metaphorical torture chamber is a groaning, headless figure on the steps of the projection stage in Day is Done, Joseph Supplicates (2005). Between the poles of memory voids and spectacle, Kelley’s targeted recycling of fractured social and artistic perceptions creates a poetic and analytical universe where reality and fiction constantly shift.

This interplay is evident in Memory Ware Flat (2001), where societal and artistic utopias shed their shells in a nostalgic assemblage. Kelley’s work interweaves old and new myths—Mephisto, Frankenstein, and Batman—with global archetypes, balancing horror and hope. The ensemble of white architectural models evokes a ghostly cityscape, its empty spaces symbolizing the selective memory of society. Kelley critiques this through reconstructions that intertwine trauma, truth, and voyeurism, offering cryptic escape routes into mythical parallel universes. For this critique, Kelley draws from the “dream factory” of Los Angeles, his hometown, as a ready resource for dissecting the interplay of power in society and art.

Kelley frames his biography as a fictional reference space with an unsettling plausibility. Disguised as scientific research, his work combines meticulous archival documentation with experimental narrative strategies. These elements construct a fictive grid shaped by the suppressed, distorted, or lost memories associated with “memory syndrome.” This strategy reveals the tensions between squandered utopias and intertwined dreams, creating a dynamic interplay of myths, fictions, and ecstasies. Kelley’s artistic process oscillates between nostalgic craftsmanship and pseudo-scientific analysis, producing a poetically charged archaeology of the unfinished present.

Kelley’s work extends to installations such as Mobiles (2002), subtitled Repressed Spatial Relationships Rendered as Fluid, which infuse reconstructed spaces with the ominous aura of surveillance. In the Secret Subbasement of Gymnasium Locker Room, the atmosphere becomes oppressive, blending sketches, plans, and stale office-like spaces with the eerie soundtrack of Morton Subotnick’s The Wild Bull, replacing that of Bob Clark’s Porky’s (1981). These unsettling juxtapositions culminate in Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction, #1 (2000), a theatrical depiction of tension between meticulous control and traumatized vulnerability, rendered in existentialist clichés of guilt and efficiency.

The labyrinthine elements of Kelley’s work, exemplified by the pink crystal-adorned Sublevel (2002), lead into a maze of cultural and subcultural transformations. These fictional spaces offer no certainty, mirroring the diffuse, unspeakable elements of memory and societal norms. Kelley’s incisive critique of the present—rooted in efficiency standards and the search for meaning—unfolds as a carnival-like, abysmally precise interplay of unfinished utopias, illusions, and fictions. His work traverses the boundaries of art and society, leaving the viewer in a state of disquiet and reflection.