Reconstructed History
"Heroic images thrive on subtraction. Idealization occurs as things move away from the physical concerns of man. Only then, after the body and desire are no longer in proximity to them, are things worthy of adoration.... The photographs you see here are not truthful representations of the historical events they picture, nor are they meant to be. Like a printed word which gives up its graphic specificity to express a concept so these pictures leave behind historical specificity to convey general American values. The reality of these past events is a confused and gruesome one anyway. One better off buried. Murder, war, the struggle for power, the desire for wealth, and the disruption of social order: all passions fired by the flesh, of no consequence today when peace and satisfaction are the rule. The past is where these things belong -- adored but not emulated." -- Mike Kelly, from Reconstructed History
LIMITED FIRST EDITION, SIGNED AND NUMBERED BY KELLEY, ONE OF ONLY 250 COPIES.
Reconstructed History, as elucidated in Kelley's introduction, explores tarnishing the sacred and how we might reconstruct a vision of our nation's past through its vandalization. Editor John C. Welchman explains, “The images are not ‘found’ but made. The result is an elaborate hoax, one of the more vivid of Kelley’s many efforts to perform, write, and represent through fictitious adopted personae.”
Designed to look like a found high school year book (with contents more mimicking a textbook), Reconstructed History is illustrated with classic historical images, defaced by Kelley, creating a profound commentary on his (and our) time.
New York: Thea Westreich & Galerie Gisela Capitain, 1990. Octavo (12 1/2" x 9 1/2"), intricately decorated beige boards, illustrated vinyl overlay; containing 61 plates. Vinyl overlay torn at bottom edge, missing an elongated triangle of mostly blank vinyl; tear reaches to about an inch at the extreme right corner. Book and text fine. RARE.
Price: $3,900 .