CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/6/2015

Now Available: 'Mike Kelley: Interviews, Conversations and Chit-Chat, 1986-2004' eBook Editions

At last, digital editions of JRP|Ringier's classic Interviews by Mike Kelley: 1986-2004 are available for Apple devices, Kindle and Nook! Edited by art historian and critical theorist John C. Welchman, this essential volume features conversations with AA Bronson, Larry Clark, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Jutta Koether, Harmony Korine, Tony Oursler, Richard Prince, Jim Shaw, Michael Smith, Jeffrey Sconce and John Waters.

Originally published in print form in 2005, Mike Kelley: Interviews, Conversations and Chit-Chat, 1986-2004 begins with an introductory interview between Kelley (1954–2012) and Welchman (both pictured above). Welchman asks: "OK Mike, we’ve got copies of the interviews here, 12 conversations with a whole range of people going back to 1986, when you talked with Michael Smith, through to this latest interview with Jeffrey Sconce on the Uncanny show in 2004. Tell me something, first, about what the interview process means to you. Most of these are conversations in which you take the lead as the interviewer and you’re mostly foregrounding various aspects of the diverse work of these other people. What does that feel like, being out in front, as it were? And how has that experience evolved for you over the last decade or so?”

Kelley responds: “Actually the collection isn’t as uniform as that. There are a lot of different situations here, ranging from interviews in which I wanted to talk to someone to get more information about them, to situations in which I was paired-up with somebody, like Richard Prince, just so that our two names were together—very Interview magazine style. It was the same with the John Waters talk. On the other hand, there are several interviews I was asked to conduct because I knew the artists very well—Jim Shaw and Tony Oursler, obviously—and to interview them in depth for a monograph. And then there are things I was asked to do with people I didn’t know so well ... maybe an editor thought I would have an interesting point of view ...”

Turns out he did. To find out more about what Mike Kelley and his cronies and sometime collaborators talked about when they talked about art, continue to the eBook page.