Michigan Stories: Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw

Against the backdrop of 1960s counterculture, Kelley and Shaw shared a lifelong friendship and common background: an upbringing and education in the state of Michigan. After growing up in the Detroit area and Midland, respectively, Kelley and Shaw met in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan, then moved to Los Angeles in 1976 to pursue graduate school at the California Institute of the Arts. ​Michigan Stories​ is the first exhibition to place these artists’ practices alongside each other in historical context, approaching their work as parallel visual meditations on midwestern culture in particular, and on American culture more broadly.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.