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Mike Kelley Cause Of Death

February 28, 2012 by · Comments Off on Mike Kelley Cause Of Death 

Mike Kelley Cause Of Death, Los Angeles County Coroner’s examiners have completed an autopsy on the body of artist Mike Kelley but have not yet determined a cause of death pending further tests, a spokesman said on Friday.

A friend found Kelley, 57, dead in the bathtub of his home in the Los Angeles suburb of South Pasadena on Tuesday and authorities have said they were investigating the case as a possible suicide.

Los Angeles County Coroner’s spokesman Lt. Larry Dietz said the additional tests likely included toxicology, which could take six to eight weeks to complete.

Kelley, an influential contemporary artist based in Los Angeles, was last seen alive on Sunday. Authorities say no suicide note was found in the home and there was no evidence of foul play.

Born in a suburb of Detroit in 1954, Kelley was a founding member of the band Destroy All Monsters in the mid-1970s before moving to California and attending the California Institute of the Arts.

Kelley, who worked in music, film, performance, drawing, sculpture and installations, was also credited with advocating for other artists and writing extensively about the subject.

Mike Kelley Artist

February 28, 2012 by · Comments Off on Mike Kelley Artist 

Mike Kelley Artist, Mike Kelley, one of the most influential American artists of the past quarter century and a pungent commentator on American class, popular culture and youthful rebellion, was found dead on Wednesday at his home in South Pasadena, Calif. He was 57.
Some of Mr. Kelley’s artwork included sculptural pieces using stuffed animals, like “Deodorized Central Mass With Satellites.”

Sgt. Robert Bartl of the South Pasadena police said it appeared that Mr. Kelley had committed suicide. Speaking to The Associated Press, he said a friend of Mr. Kelley’s had told investigators that Mr. Kelley had been depressed after breaking up with a girlfriend.

An autopsy was to be performed, Sergeant Bartl said.

Mr. Kelley was born in Wayne, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, to a working class Roman Catholic family in October 1954. His father was in charge of maintenance for a public school system; his mother was a cook in the executive dining room at Ford Motor Company. He had early aspirations to be a novelist, but doubted his talent and found writing was too difficult, so he turned his energies to art, through painting, object-making and through music.

In high school he immersed himself in Detroit’s heavy metal music subculture, and that involvement continued through college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There he performed in a proto-punk noise band called Destroy All Monsters with three other artists, Jim Shaw, Niagara and Carey Loren, creating work that, with its combination of anti-establishment politics and Dada theatrics, had close connections to performance art.

He brought this interest with him to graduate school in 1978 at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Calif. There he formed a second art-band, “The Poetics,” with fellow students John Miller and Tony Oursler. He absorbed, with some resistance, the school’s overriding focus on Conceptual Art and theory, eased into by the embracing approach of teachers like John Baldessari, Laurie Anderson and Douglas Huebler.

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