Ahh...Youth!
A kitsch klatch of thrift-shop yarn dolls and stuffed animals gets the yearbook photo treatment alongside the genuine article (featuring the artist himself) in Mike Kelley’s lineup of misfit mugshots. The artist’s self-caricature compares his apathetic, acne-scarred, adolescent self to the cuddly but creepy castoffs in a fractured fairy tale about youth. Early viewers of the work assumed that it conjured the artist’s traumatic childhood, but Kelley insisted that such conjectures were informed more by projected anxieties than by any repressed memories of his own. Still, he admitted that such symbol-laden toys and similar cultural objects wield unnerving control: "You are them, whether you like it or not." The iconic series is widely recognized from the cover of Sonic Youth’s 1992 album Dirty and a 2018 drop from streetwear label Supreme
Artwork Details
- Title: Ahh...Youth!
- Artist: Mike Kelley (American, Wayne, Michigan 1954–2012 South Pasadena, California)
- Date: 1991
- Medium: Silver dye bleach prints
- Dimensions: Sheet: 23 5/8 × 16 1/8 in. (60 × 41 cm), each
Framed: 26 1/8 in. × 18 3/4 in. × 3/4 in. (66.4 × 47.6 × 1.9 cm), each - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of Helena and Per Skarstedt, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.584a–h
- Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
More Artwork
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.