Untitled

In this photograph, which is part of a series, the artist Mike Kelley homes in on one of the most unassuming forms found in the sphere of everyday life: the dust ball. Getting a firm grasp on the cloud-shaped mass against the uneven background is difficult. It seems vast and obscure, like a swirling, self-contained universe. Poised between the cosmic and the tiniest aspects of existence, the dust ball quietly testifies to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that all order in the universe creates an equivalent or greater chaos elsewhere. In various ways and different contexts, Kelley worked with the cultural (by)products that are all around us, but which we rarely notice. In this book, Kelley’s work serves as a reminder that most of the SMK collection is kept in storage. This includes the majority of the extensive collection of works on paper to which this photograph belongs. Down in the vaults, they all wait to be brought out into the light of day. Who knows, perhaps pieces of art history that we currently overlook, seeing them as negligible dust balls, will at some point in the future be admired as the collection’s most important works? (50 Favorites in the SMK Collection)