Mike Kelley's signifigance within the contemporary art scene is immense. He has, since the beginning of the 1970's, directed his artistic practice towards a critical analysis of the religious, psychic and economic conventions establishing points of departure from within Western Civilisation. With symbols and strategies of seduction taken from popular culture he has created a type of vision of human existence which in all its banality appears both grotesque and surrealistic.

This exhibition is a collaboration between MACBA (Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona), Rooseum and Stedelijk van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven. The exhibition includes 70 works in many different mediums: painting, sculpture, installaton, photography, water color, architectural models, video and music which display Kelley's modular artistic practice. Kelley's, collaborative work with other artists such as Paul McCarthy, Bruce and Norman Yonemoto in the videos "Heidi" and "Kappa" as well as various composers in the Californian avant garde scene is also well represented. The exhibition should not be seen as a retrospective, such as that held at the Whitney Museum of American Art's exhibition in New York in 1993, in the prevalent sense of the word even though most of the works are from the 1980's and 90's. It is rather a reassessment of a series of earlier work which has been revised for this exhibition. This also includes, nothing less than, the imposing "Plato's Cave. Rothko's Chapel. Lincoln's Profile" which originated in 1985. The works created in the last few years is named "Missing Time" and includes for example a suite with thirteen paintings called "The Thirteen Seasons (Heavy on the Winter)".