Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Kandor


I must be one of the few who hear about Mike Kelley's current Kandor show at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and don't instantly know what Kandor is.




But for those few as ignorant as me, here are the facts. Kandor was originally the home city of Superman on the planet Krypton. But then it was whisked away and shrunk down to tiny size by space villain Brainiac. Consequently, it can ever afterward only be preserved in a special bottle under Superman's care.




And Mike Kelley has made it his business for a number of years now to present his own free-form sculptural conceptions of Kandor, as manifested by his own personal creative imagination combined with his own personal sense of marketing.






People in Beverley Hills line up to buy these light-up Kandor-worlds and take them home. From inspiration through execution, it is genuine indigenous American art.