Artist Mike Kelley was found dead today at his L.A. home of an apparent suicide, as ArtInfo reports. He was 57 years old.
In addition to being a renowned visual artist, Kelley was also a musician. He was a founding member of the proto-punk Detroit band Destroy All Monsters, who earned a cult following with their experimental performance art. Incarnations of the band included members of the Stooges and MC5. In 1994, Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label released a three-disc collection of music by Destroy All Monsters.
Kelley was a longtime friend of Kim Gordon when he created the artwork for Sonic Youth's 1992 album Dirty. Kelley had previously collaborated with Sonic Youth on a piece of music, in 1988, for the New York-based Tellus Audio Cassette series.
Kelley graduated from University of Michigan in 1976, and then moved to L.A., where he studied with Laurie Anderson at the California Institute of the Arts. There he formed the conceptual punk performance group Poetics, as ArtInfo notes. Kelley's solo art career bloomed in the early 1990s, with gallery shows around the world. His website offers his full discography and a list of exhibitions, writings, and other projects.
Watch a PBS segment on Kelley:
