Mike Kelley’sMobile Homestead:a re-envisioning of space in public sculptureTEXT / RANA EDGARMike Kelley’s highly anticipated first permanentpublic sculpture and final project, MobileHomestead, opened in May 2013 at the Museum ofContemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). 1 MobileHomestead is a full-scale replica of the 1950s ranchstylehome in Westland, Michigan, a metro Detroitsuburb, where Kelley was raised. The lot neighboringMOCAD is the permanent home of the installation,which will function as both a public andprivate space. The project exists in multiple segments;it consists of a mobile home that imitatesthe façade of Kelley’s childhood home and a permanentstructure, built on a lot next to themuseum, that replicates the floor plan of Kelley’schildhood home. Each segment of the project willserve a range of functions. The mobile section ofthe project will travel within the city and outlyingareas of Detroit, providing a transportable spacewhere numerous social services will be offered. Adocumentary video that Kelley made in the fall of2010 ac<strong>com</strong>panies the public sculpture andincludes footage of the journey taken by the travelingportion of Mobile Homestead⎯fromMOCAD’s location in downtown Detroit, alongMichigan Avenue to the site of Kelley’s childhoodhome, and back to the museum, a pilgrimage ofapproximately 40 miles round-trip, passingthrough disparate areas of urban renewal anddecay on its way to the blue-collar suburbs ofDetroit. 2 When it is not mobile, this segment of theproject will remain stationary at MOCAD. The permanentportion of the project houses a <strong>com</strong>munitygallery on the main floor, an area that will primarilyfunction as a space for artistic and cultural programmingand reflects the interests of the greaterDetroit <strong>com</strong>munity. 3 The <strong>com</strong>munity gallery sitsdirectly above an ambiguous maze of permanentunderground rooms that will remain closed to thepublic, functioning primarily as an enigmaticspace available, on occasion, to artists as a site torealize concealed endeavors. 4 As envisioned byKelley, Mobile Homestead will provide a place forDetroit <strong>com</strong>munity members and artists to pushthe boundaries of contemporary art practice andaddress a broad range of social and political issues.Mary Clare Stevens, executive director of the MikeKelley Foundation for the Arts, notes that the projectwill function as a living artwork and is enthusiasticabout the potential out<strong>com</strong>es to be realized inthe space. 5The Mobile Homestead project has evolved quitedrastically in terms of its spatial concept and contextsince its inception, as Kelley had initially envisionedit as a personal rather than a public project.His earliest concept required the purchase of theactual home where he grew up, but circumstancesbeyond his control did not allow this acquisition. In2005 Kelley was approached by London-based arts
organization Artangel, 6 and from that point thework took a new turn in its journey by transforminginto a public project. Once the work hadbeen <strong>com</strong>missioned, MOCAD came on board toassist in bringing the project to the city ofDetroit. Marsha Miro, acting director of MOCADat the time, regards the project as a means for the<strong>com</strong>munity to be<strong>com</strong>e involved in a work of artand as a way for an artwork to be<strong>com</strong>e part of a<strong>com</strong>munity. 7 It is intriguing that Kelley becameso engaged with the Mobile Homestead project,as he had expressed an unyielding opinion thatpublic works were unsatisfactory, a view hemade clear in his essay on Mobile Homestead,stating, “Public art is a pleasure that is forcedupon a public that, in most cases, finds no pleasurein it.” 8 Regardless of Kelley’s initial misgivingsabout the potential success of the work, asignificant ac<strong>com</strong>plishment of Mobile Homesteadis that it buttresses a new social realm inKelley’s often privatized oeuvre.Mobile Homestead represents both an importanttransition and fulfilling culmination ofKelley’s work, which for more than 35 years traverseddrawing, painting, sculpture, installation,video, and performance. His range of media wasvaried, yet the implications of Kelley’s personalexperiences with <strong>com</strong>ing of age in a workingclassfamily in Detroit resonate deeply anddarkly throughout his portfolio. Works such asthe architectural model Educational Complex(1995) and the film drama Extracurricular ActivityProjective Reconstruction #1 (Domestic Scene)(2000), included in Kelley’s retrospective at theStedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, are prime examplesof his investigations into chilhood memoriesand issues of identity. The exhibition encapsulatesKelley’s visual explorations with issues offamily, class struggle, and the inner workings ofthe psyche, which seem to culminate in MobileHomestead, and, like much of his work, challengesviewers to look beyond the popular cultureparaphernalia presented and to put asidethe feelings of sentimentality typically associatedwith the innocence of youth, to consider theeffects of repression, suffering, and loss that areintimately tied to childhood and adolescence.Kelley’s works resonate universally with one’sown secret inner childhood dreams, nightmares,and desires by presenting the familiar in unexpectedways and by articulating the hauntinglyveiled visual cues of suppressed memories.Although Kelley never intended for MobileHomestead to act in any way as a shrine to hisupbringing, family, or life, nor to have a resonatingsentiment attached to it, one almost can’tavoid experiencing feelings of nostalgia uponviewing this work. Perhaps Mobile Homesteadwould yield different reactions if the fact werenot offered as public knowledge that it re-createsthe façade and floor plan of Kelley’s childhoodhome. This knowledge forces us, however, toinvestigate the work through a set of preconceivednotions of what home means to us andultimately to Kelley, as the specificity of the decisionto replicate this particular home suggests adirect correlation between his life and work.Mobile Homestead oscillates between familiarityand function to re-envision a site of public andprivate purpose. Unlike homes featured in livinghistory museums—particularly GreenfieldVillage at The Henry Ford, a metro Detroit attraction9 —we are not given a view of what life waslike for Kelley through display of objects or historicalcontext. Instead we are presented withINSIDE FRONT COVER: Mike Kelley, Mobile Homestead, 2010–ongoing, mixed media, 13 1/2 x 44 1/2 x 8 feet [courtesy of Kelley Studio and MOCAD, Detroit] / OPPOSITE, LEFT TO RIGHT:Mike Kelley, video still from Mobile Homestead: Going East on Michigan Avenue from Westland to Downtown Detroit, 2010–2011, three videos running time approx. 3.5 hours total; video stillfrom Mobile Homestead: Going West on Michigan Avenue from Downtown Detroit to Westland, 2010-2011, three videos running time approx. 3.5 hours total / ABOVE: Mike Kelley, MobileHomestead parked in front of the original Kelley home on Palmer Road, Westland, Michigan, 2010 [photo: Corine Vermuelen; courtesy of MOCAD]<strong>ART</strong><strong>PAPERS</strong>.ORG 11
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