Mike Kelley, Perspectaphone, 1978. Performance at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles, 1978. Photo © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All rights reserved.

On Mike Kelley’s Performance Practice and Legacies

The Object and the Action

27.9 2025

Stockholm

In conjunction with the exhibition “Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit”, Moderna Museet presents a symposium dedicated to Mike Kelley’s early performance practice of the late 1970s and early 1980s. At the heart of the symposium is the world premiere of never-before-seen footage of Kelley’s performances at Hallwalls in 1981, filmed by fellow artist and close collaborator Tony Oursler.

On Mike Kelley’s Performance Practice and Legacies

The Object and the Action

Date

Saturday 27 September 2025

Time

14.00–17.00

Place

The Auditorium, floor 2

Language

English

Price

Free admission, no pre-registration required

Contact: Alexander Kateb, Moderna Museet

Mike Kelley’s early performance practice of the late 1970s and early 1980s was marked by his immersion in anarchist politics, punk music, and the experimental environment of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where performance became a key methodology in his art. These early works were characterized by Kelley’s experiments with sculptural or found objects, around which he created language, interaction, and liveness, probing their form, function, and meaning.

Kelley said: “The earliest performances were just groups of demonstrations of objects; by talking about them, their meanings changed.” Language played a central role in this practice, as Kelley developed extensive scripts that complicated subject–object relationships that would define much of his later work.

Programme

14.00 Welcome
Opening address by Hendrik Folkerts, Curator of International Contemporary Art and Head of Exhibitions, and curator of “Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit”, Moderna Museet.

Introduction & Screening/Performance: Tony Oursler
The symposium begins with rare archival footage of Mike Kelley’s performances at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, USA, 1981, filmed by artist and close collaborator Tony Oursler. Joining online, Oursler will introduce the material offering a unique opportunity to witness Kelley’s radical beginnings in performance, illuminating the raw experimentation that shaped his artistic voice.

Lecture: Marie de Brugerolle
Art historian Marie de Brugerolle will contextualise Mike Kelley’s Hallwalls performances within the broader trajectory of his early performance practice, highlighting their lasting significance and the reverberations throughout his later oeuvre.

15.25–15.45 Coffee break

15.45–17.00 Panel discussion
The day concludes with a panel discussion featuring Marie de Brugerolle, Mary Clare Stevens (President of the Mike Kelley Foundation and longtime collaborator of the artist), Cally Spooner (artist and writer), and Catherine Wood (Director of Programme and organizing co-curator of “Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit”, Tate Modern).

Moderated by Hendrik Folkerts, the panel will reflect on the enduring legacy of Mike Kelley’s work, while situating his pioneering explorations in performance within the context of performance practice today.

Participants

Marie de Brugerolle

Marie de Brugerolle is an author, curator, and dramaturg. Challenging linear history, her work investigates the margins, entangling theory and practice. Gossips, speculative archives and re-enactement are part of her method. A champion of Guy de Cointet (1934–1983), she organised his first exhibitions, monograph, and re-enactments, as well as the documentary “Who’s That Guy, Tell Me More” (2011).

Since 2011, her concept “Post-Performance Future” has investigated the impact of performativity on the visual arts. The book “Post-Performance Future, Method” (2023) was celebrated at the Pompidou Centre, Paris (“Liv®e Live”, 2024). A professor at ENSBA Lyon, she has lectured internationally and contributes to Art Press, Mousse, Flash Art, and major catalogues, including “Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit” (2024/25).

Her novel “Polyspherus” (2021) was published by Ishtar, Brussels. Most recently, she curated “WORD IS ROUND” (Frac Nantes, 2025) and is guest editor of “John Baldessari Transatlantique” (2025).

Mary Clare Stevens

Mary Clare Stevens is the Executive Director of the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. She directs the vision of the Foundation with the Board of Directors and oversees the administration, operations and initiatives of the organization. She was the artist’s studio manager for many years and was a trustee of his estate, serving a key role in the transition from a working artist’s studio to a non-profit foundation.

Prior to her work with Kelley’s Studio and the Foundation, she worked in arts education, video and art production, and museum administration. She is also an artist and holds an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Stevens appears in Kelley’s “Day Is Done” as an extra and contributed vocals to several songs for the project.

Cally Spooner

Cally Spooner is a British-Italian artist and writer whose choreographies unfold across media—through sound, film, text, objects, and drawings. Rooted in her training in philosophy, her series of five essays on “performance”, A Hypothesis of Resistance, was published as a monographic text in 2024 and edited in conversation with Will Holder.

Spooner’s solo exhibitions include: Graham Foundation, Chicago (2024); Cukrarna, Ljubljana (2023); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem (2021); Parrhesiades, London (2020); the Art Institute of Chicago (2019); Swiss Institute, New York; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; and Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève (2018). Her live productions, plays, and events have been staged at, among others, the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum M, Leuven; the High Line, New York; Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London; and Performa 13.

Catherine Wood

Catherine Wood is the Director of Curatorial and Chief Curator of Tate Modern and leads Tate Modern’s artistic programme, including exhibitions, Collection displays, commissions, live art and performance events, and community and participatory projects. She was instrumental in making performance and live art a core part of Tate Modern’s programme, working closely with artists such as Cecilia Vicuña, Joan Jonas, Tania Bruguera, and Anne Imhof, among many others.

She has curated and co-curated major exhibitions including “The World as a Stage” (2007), “Pop Life: Art in a Material World” (2009), “A Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance” (2012), and “Robert Rauschenberg” (2016). She has also been a pioneer in curating for online audiences, initiating Tate’s first live-streamed performance programme in 2012, and has played a key role in bringing live, time-based works into Tate’s collection, including Suzanne Lacy’s “The Crystal Quilt” (1985–1987) and Lee Mingwei’s “Our Labyrinth”.

Outside Tate, Catherine Wood has curated exhibitions at Raven Row, London; KW Berlin; OGR Torino; and Bozar Brussels, and is the author of Yvonne Rainer, “The Mind is a Muscle” (2007) and “Performance in Contemporary Art” (2018). Most recently, she curated “Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit” at Tate Modern (2024).

Hendrik Folkerts

Hendrik Folkerts is Curator of International Contemporary Art and Head of Exhibitions at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, where he recently curated the exhibitions “Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit” (2025, organised by Tate Modern, London), “Katalin Ladik: Ooooooooo-pus” (2024), “Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product” (2024), and “Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and Moderna Museet’s collection” (2023).

Folkerts previously served as Dittmer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (2017–2022), Curator at documenta 14, Kassel/Athens (2014–2017), Curator of Performance, Film, and Discursive Programmes at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2010–2015), and Coordinator of the Curatorial Programme at De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam (2009–2011).