The noise hits you first – a wailing, shrieking howlround of slasher-movie drama. Footsteps get closer, heartbeats pound faster, girls scream against swirling winds. Ectoplasm streams from the nostrils of the artist, in giant photographs, poltergeists are summoned in spidery drawings. Halloween is just around the corner.
The world of Mike Kelley (1954-2012) is locked in time and place, specifically the late-20th-century US on a twisted trick-or-treat spree. He’s at your door with his poker-faced glee, ripping up Sesame Street with sculptures of soft toys having sex, scrawling captions – “Barf!” “Grunt!” – on photographs of US presidents, appliqueing “F*ck You … Now Give Me a Treat Please” in primary coloured felt on a Sunday school banner.
