Mary Kelly, 2010
Photo: Åsa Lundén/Moderna Museet

Mary Kelly studied painting in Florence in the 1960s and lived in Beirut for several years. In 1968, she moved to London and pursued her studies at the St Martin’s School of Art. In London, she embarked on her critique of conceptual art, basing it on feminist theory and the 1970s women’s movement.

Mary Kelly was also a co-founder of the Artists’ Union and worked with the Berwick Street film Collective. Her major projects include Post-Partum Document, Interim, Gloria Patri, The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi and Love Songs, which was shown at documenta12 in Kassel in 2007. Mary Kelly lived in New York and taught at the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program from 1989 until she joined the faculty of the art department at the University of California Los Angeles in 1996.

Selected shows by Mary Kelly: Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, 2008; 16th Biennale of Sydney, 2008; documenta12, Kassel 2007; WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, Los Angeles/New York, 2007; Batalla dos Xeneros, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, 2007; Occupying Space, Haus der Kunst, Munich/Zagreb/Rotterdam; Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2004; Nude/Body/Action, Tate Modern, London, 2000; The American Century 1950-2000, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1999; Generali Foundation, Vienna, 1998; Malmö Konstmuseum, 1996; NowHere, Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, 1996; Uppsala Konstmuseum, 1994; Helsinki City Art Museum, 1994; Galleri F15, Moss, 1994; ICA, London, 1993; Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1991; Power Plant, Toronto, 1991; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1990; 4th Biennale of Sydney, Gallery of New South Wales, 1982; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 1977; ICA, London, 1976.