The Secret

1999

Not on view

This triptych explores America’s tangled obsessions with celebrity, sex, and violence. In the left panel, Kelley offers a Swiftian "modest proposal," inspired by then-President Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, to cure the puritanical impetus behind his impeachment. In the center and right-hand panels, the artist juxtaposes a poster for a children’s movie from Steven Spielberg’s Land Before Time franchise with chilling testimony from a man who stalked the famous director about the time of the film’s release. With typical dark humor, Kelley suggests that the secret behind America’s particular dysfunction lies in the infantilism bred in the bone of capitalist mass culture.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: The Secret
Artist: Mike Kelley (American, Wayne, Michigan 1954–2012 South Pasadena, California)
Date: 1999
Medium: Chromogenic prints; offset lithograph
Dimensions: Framed: 40 5/8 × 27 5/8 in. (103.2 × 70.2 cm), each
Classification: Photographs
Credit Line: Gift of Judith Vida-Spence and Stuart Spence, 2017
Object Number: 2017.696a–c
Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Curatorial Department: Photographs

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