Proto-punk artist/musician Mike Kelley dead at 58, apparent suicide

Renowned for his work with the Thurston Moore-endorsed proto-punk collective and art school project Destroy All Monsters in the 90s, Mike Kelley is credited with redefining the Los Angeles art scene. He’d studied alongside other cross-disciplinary artists like Laurie Anderson and was a forerunner in “abject art”, culminating in the 2005 Day is Done exhibition being famously described as “clusterfuck aesthetics” by New York Magazine critic Jerry Saltz. Kelly’s studio issued a statement in the L.A. Times saying, “he was an irresistible force in contemporary art”.