Mobile Homestead Videos is a Site Gallery exhibition in collaboration with Artangel featuring three videos made in Detroit by Mike Kelley (1954 – 2012) as a key part of his last work. Recognised as one of America’s most influential artists of the past 25 years, this is the European premiere of the exhibition of the videos.
In 2010, Laura Sillars, now Site Gallery’s Artistic Director, worked in Detroit with Mike Kelley and Executive Producer James Lingwood of Artangel over four months as Location Producer on the project.
Going West on Michigan Avenue from Downtown Detroit to Westland and Going East on Michigan Avenue from Westland to Downtown Detroit,follow the journey of a mobile home – a replica of the Kelley family Detroit home, recreated by the artist – pulled by a truck from its new location at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit (MOCAD) to visit the old Kelley family home. The journey takes us along Michigan Avenue, an arterial route out of the city that passes through some of Detroit’s most historic neighbourhoods including Cork Town, the old Irish quarter; the Latin quarter; Dearborn where Henry Ford was born and raised; the international Ford motor company HQ and the Henry Ford Museum. Economically, the street is the epitome of Motor City.
The films of the journey are intercut by interviews with some of the inhabitants and workers who occupy Michigan Avenue. Kelley interweaves a narrative between the fascinating and bizarre characters, drawing the viewer into the incredible, sometimes shocking and other times ordinariness of peoples’ lives. It is a street of strange encounters; from Albanian Mike at Mike’s Famous Hams, opposite the only Jewish deli in the city, and nestling behind it, a ‘life-style’ venue led by a local dominatrix.
A third film at Site Gallery, Mobile Homestead Christening Ceremony and Launch, 25 September 2010, documents the maiden voyage of the mobile home. The exhibition is contextualised with a map of Michigan Avenue.
Mobile Homestead was commissioned by Artangel with support from the LUMA Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
Photographs of the exhibition:
