Death mask of Napoleon
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Mike Kelley's The Uncanny (Mike Kelley)
LA artist Mike Kelley's first major show in the UK for a decade is based around Freud's concept of The Uncanny. It's the strange, uncomfortable feeling when something inanimate looks almost human, but isn't. The sensation you get from dolls, waxworks, masks, body parts and robots.
Kelley has brought together his own selection of disturbing sculptures throughout the ages, and the effect is mesmerising. He groups together pieces in sections - figures, animals and loose body parts. Interspersed with iconic sculptures like Allen Jones’ pop-art bondage piece, Chair, Cynthia Plaster Caster's penis moulds and the Chapman Brothers’ Ubermensch, are 19th-century medical models and Napoleon's Death Mask. This is a brilliant history of figurative sculpture with a macabre edge.
Kelley also displays The Harems, a brilliant collection of collections, from business cards to squeezy toys to marbles. In all, a brilliant exhibition that forces you to look at things differently. Francesca Gavin 20 February 04
Mike Kelley: The Uncanny is at Tate Liverpool until 03 May 04.
