Mary Kelly (artist) facts for kids

Mary Kelly was born in 1941 in Fort Dodge, Iowa. She is an American artist, teacher, and writer. She is known for her unique style of conceptual art.

Mary Kelly has greatly influenced discussions about feminism and modern art. She creates large art projects that tell stories. Her work often mixes conceptual art with personal feelings. She is seen as one of the most important modern artists today. Mary Kelly teaches art at the University of Southern California. She used to teach at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Mary Kelly's Art Projects

Mary Kelly is famous for her big art projects. These projects often tell a story. In the 1970s, her art was about being pregnant and raising a child.

Antepartum (1973) was a single photo of her touching her belly. Her unborn baby was moving inside. Post-Partum Document (1973–79) was a six-part project. It used personal items and ideas to show the bond between a mother and child. Both works were made in the same year.

Post-Partum Document

Post-Partum Document was first shown in London in 1976. It had six parts and 135 smaller pieces. It also included essays and notes. The project used different items from her newborn son's life.

It carefully recorded everything her son did, like eating and sleeping. It also kept a diary of Mary Kelly's thoughts. The project included used diaper liners and feeding charts. It also documented her son's first words. Each part was made with special materials.

For example, Documentation I used six used diaper liners. These were shown with her written notes. Documentation III was a record of talks with her child. It also showed her own thoughts as a mother. Her child's drawings on top of her notes showed their interaction. It also showed that the mother-child bond can be "difficult and complex," not just sweet. In this series, Kelly changed as a mother as her child grew.

Documentation VI was like an ancient tablet. It recorded her son learning to write. It also showed other small but important life events. These events helped their relationship grow. Art expert Lucy R. Lippard said this project showed how society affects the "ideal" mother-child bond.

This project is important in feminist art. It shows what motherhood means for women today. It also looked at being a mother in a distant, almost scientific way. This was different from what many male artists did at the time.

Later Works and Themes

Since the 1980s, Mary Kelly's art has explored big ideas and personal identity. Her large work, Interim (1984–89), looked at women's shared memories. It explored how society defines women. Even though there are no female bodies in this project, clothing in Interim is very important.

Another project, Gloria Patri (1992), used items from the first Gulf War. It questioned how big world events affect people's lives. In The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi (2001), she used lint from a clothes dryer. She shaped it into wavy panels. These panels told the story of a child left alone during the war in Kosovo.

Art expert Griselda Pollock said the waves looked like sound waves. They also looked like the flow of life. This project showed how art can make us think about how we see things. For this work, Mary Kelly asked composer Michael Nyman to create music. A singer and a music group performed it at the art show.

In 2004, Kelly created Circa 1968. This artwork showed the student protests in Paris in 1968. Like The Ballad of Kastriot Rexhepi, it was made from dryer lint. It took over 10,000 loads of laundry to get enough lint! The art was projected onto a wall. It made people think about the past, future, and what these events mean today.

For Love Songs (2005), Kelly worked with young women. They were interested in the women's movement. They re-created old photos of protests from 30 years ago. Her "remixes" were similar enough to show connections. But they were also different enough to show how things have changed.

Major Art Shows

Mary Kelly has had big solo art shows. These include shows at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York (1990). She also had shows at the Generali Foundation in Vienna (1998) and the Institute for Contemporary Art in London (1993).

She has also been part of many group shows. These include documenta 12 in Germany (2007). She was also in WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution in Los Angeles (2007). Other shows include the Whitney Biennial in New York (2004). She also showed work at the Biennale of Sydney in Australia (2008). Her art was also in the California Biennial (2008). Most recently, her work was shown in Mary Kelly: Projects, 1973-2020 in Manchester, UK (2011).

The first three parts of her famous work Post-Partum Document were shown in London in 1976. Interim, one of her biggest projects, was first shown completely at the New Museum in 1990. In 2007, she showed her mixed media art called "Love Songs" at documenta in Germany. Mary Kelly's art is in many museum collections, including the Tate. She also took part in the first Desert X art show in Palm Springs, California.

Books by and About Mary Kelly

Books by the Artist

• Post-Partum Document, 1983. This book was reprinted in 1998.
• Imaging Desire, 1996.
• Pecunia Olet, 1989.

Books and Articles About the Artist

• Rance, Victoria 'Mary Kelly: Projects, 1973-2010' (2011).
• Mary Kelly: Words are things, (catalog) and Mary Kelly: On fidelity, (conference papers), 2008.
• Mary Kelly, 2008.
• Mary Kelly: La balada de Kastriot Rexhepi/ Musica original de Michael Nyman, (catalog), 2004.
• Rereading Post-Partum Document, 1999.
• Mary Kelly, 1997.
• Social Process Collaborative Action: Mary Kelly 1970-1975, 1997.
• Mary Kelly: Gloria Patri, (catalog).
• Mary Kelly: Interim, (catalog), 1990.
• Richmond, Susan. "From Stone to Cloud: Mary Kelly's Love Songs and Feminist Intergenerationality". Feminist Theory 11.1 (2010): 57-78.

Where You Can See Her Art

Mary Kelly's artworks are held in many public art collections around the world. Here are some of them:

• Arts Council of Great Britain
• Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada
• Australian National Gallery
• Burger Collection, Zurich, Switzerland
• Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland
• Centre Pompidou Foundation, Paris, France
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
• Colorado University Art Museum, Boulder, CO
• Generali Foundation, Vienna, Austria
• Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
• Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland
• Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, NY
• Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland
• Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Canada
• Moderna Musset, Stockholm, Sweden
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
• Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY
• Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
• Museum Sztuki, Łódź, Poland
• National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
• New Hall, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK
• New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY
• Norton Family Foundation, Santa Monica, CA
• Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA
• Progressive Corporation
• Rachofsky House, Dallas, TX
• Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
• Tate Britain, London, UK
• Tate Modern, London, UK
• Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia, Canada
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
• Weil, Gotshal and Manges Collection
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
• The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
• Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK

See also

• Feminist art movement in the United States