Mary Reid Kelley combines painting, performance, and a distinctive wordplay-rich poetry in her polemical, graphically stylized videos. Performing as a First World War soldier, a grisette in revolutionary Paris, or the Minotaur, she resurrects characters that embody particular facets of ideas in time. Her historically specific tableaux enclose dilemmas of mortality, sex, and estrangement, navigated by the characters in punning dialogue that traps them between tragic and comic meanings.
Mary Reid Kelley was born in 1979 in Greenville, South Carolina USA. Reid Kelley received her BFA from St. Olaf College, Minnesota, and an MFA in Painting from Yale University in 2009. Forthcoming in November 2017 Tate Liverpool will host a new commission by Reid Kelley which marks her first museum solo exhibition in the UK. Recent solo exhibitions include: We’re Wallowing Here In Your Disco Tent, The High Line, New York (2016); Mary Reid Kelley, M – Museum Leuven, Leuven (2016); A Marquee Piece of Sod – The WWI Films of Mary Reid Kelley, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen (2016); The Thong of Dionysus, Fredericks & Freiser, New York (2015); Hammer Projects: Mary Reid Kelley, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2015); Mary Reid Kelley, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (2015); Mary Reid Kelley, Site Santa Fe (2015); Swinburne’s Pasiphae, Pilar Corrias, London (2014); Mary Reid Kelley, Neuer Kunstverein Wien, Vienna (2014); Mary Reid Kelley: Working Objects and Videos, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz; University Art Museum, University at Albany, New York (2014); Mary Reid Kelley, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), Boston (2013); Sadie, The Saddest Sadist and Priapus Agonistes, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (2013); The Syphilis of Sisyphus: Mary Reid Kelley with Patrick Kelley, AMOA Arthouse, Austin (2013); and The Syphilis of Sisyphus, The Box at Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus (2012). Recent group exhibitions include: Commercial Break, Public Art Fund, New York (2017); The Arcades: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin, The Jewish Museum, New York; World War 1 And American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (2016); Objects Do Things, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2016); Mixtape 2016, Pilar Corrias, London (2016); Objects Do Things, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2016); The Beast and the Sovereign, MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2015); Classicicity: Ancient art, contemporary objects, BREESE LITTLE, London (2015);Making Histories, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City Art Institute (2015); Not Really, Castle Gallery, College of New Rochelle, Connecticut (2015); Pratfall Tramps, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (2015); Who’s Speaking?,Klemms Gallery, Berlin (2015); Tightened As If By Pliers, Knockdown Center, Queens, NY (2015); Mary Reid Kelley and Maria Lassnig, Rose Art Museum, Massachusetts (2014); Through the Eyes of Texas: Masterworks from the Alumni Collections, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin (2013); Re-generation, MACRO, Rome (2012); Weighted Words, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2012); Rear View Mirror, Space B, New York (2012).
Reid Kelley has been awarded the MacArthur Felloship (2016); the Baloise Art Prize (2016); the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2014); Tiffany Foundation 2013 Biennial Grant (2014); The Shifting Foundation Grant (2012); Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome (2011); the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2009); and a CAA Visual Arts Fellowship (2008). Reid Kelley’s work is in the public collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; and Kadist Foundation.
Mary Reid Kelley lives and works in Olivebridge, upstate New York.
Born 1979 in Greenville, United States of America
Lives and works in Saratoga Springs, Upstate New York
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore – US
2017
Mary Reid Kelley, Mudam Luxembourg, Luxembourg – LU
Mary Reid Kelley, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool – UK
2016
We’re Wallowing Here In Your Disco Tent, The High Line, New York – US
Mary Reid Kelley, M – Museum Leuven, Leuven – BE
A Marquee Piece of Sod – The WWI Films of Mary Reid Kelley, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen – DE
The Minotaur Trilogy, Arratia Beer, Berlin – DE
2015
Hammer Projects: Mary Reid Kelley, curated by Emily Gonzalez-Jarrett, Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles – US
The Thong of Dionysus, Fredericks & Freiser, New York – US
Mary Reid Kelley, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow – RU
Mary Reid Kelley, Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe – US
2014
Swinburne’s Pasiphae, Pilar Corrias, London – UK
Mary Reid Kelley: Working Objects and Videos, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz; University Art Museum, University at Albany, State University of New York, New York – US*
The Syphilis of Sisyphus, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY – US
Mary Reid Kelley, Neuer Kunstverein Wien, Vienna, Austria – AT
2013
Mary Reid Kelley, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA), Boston – US*
Sadie, The Saddest Sadist and Priapus Agonistes, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven – US
The Syphilis of Sisyphus: Mary Reid Kelley with Patrick Kelley, AMOA Arthouse (curated by Rachel Adams), The Jones Centre, Austin – US
Priapus Agonistes, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Culver City – US
2012
The Syphilis of Sisyphus, The Box at Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus – US
H/Qu: Mary Reid Kelley with Patrick Kelley, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson – US
Performing Histories: Mary Reid Kelley, Salina Art Center, Salina – US
2011
The Syphilis of Sisyphus, Fredericks & Freiser, New York – US
2010
You Make Me Iliad, Pilar Corrias, London – UK
Sadie, The Saddest Sadist, Susanne Vielmetter Projects, Los Angeles – US
2009
Sadie, The Saddest Sadist, Fredericks & Freiser, New York – US
2007
Bring Superior Forces to Bear, Rochester Art Centre, Rochester – US
2006
Paper Union, Christensen Center Art Gallery, Augsburg College, Minneapolis – US
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018
Blind Faith: Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art, Haus der Kunst, Munich – DE
2017
Life a User’s Manual, Art Encounters Contemporary Art Biennale, Timisoara and Arad- RO
The Humours, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne – AU
Artists’ Film International 2017, ‘This Is Offal’, sponsored by Hammer Museum, LA. Multiple international locations throughout 2017, including Whitechapel Gallery, London – UK
Gray Matters, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus – US
Commercial Break, Public Art Fund, New York – US
The Arcades: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin, The Jewish Museum, New York – US
2017 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York – US
2016
About Face, University of Arkansas Fine Art Gallery, Arkansas – US
World War 1 And American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia – US
Sexting, Kate Werble Gallery, New York – US
Romeo Inaugural Exhibition, Romeo, New York – US
Objects Do Things, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw – PL
Mixtape 2016, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London – UK
2015
By the Book, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York – US
The Beast and the Sovereign, MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona – ES
Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart – DE
Classicicity: Ancient art, contemporary objects, BREESE LITTLE, London – UK
Making Histories, curated by Raechell Smith and David Cateforis, H&R Block Artspace, Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas – US
Pratfall Tramps, curated by Rachel Reese, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta – US
Not Really, curated by Sue Canning, Castle Gallery, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle – US
Who’s Speaking?, Klemms Gallery, Berlin – DE
2014
Tightened As If By Pliers, curated by Joshua Bienko and Leeza Meksin for Ortega y Gasset Projects, Knockdown Center, Queens, NY – US
Mary Reid Kelley and Maria Lassnig, Rose Video Series 03, The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham – US
Pale Fire, The LeRoy Neiman Gallery, Columbia University School of the Arts, New York – US
2013
Through the Eyes of Texas: Masterworks from the Alumni Collections, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX – US
2012
Pencil Pushed, Ewing Gallery of Art & Architecture, University of Tennessee, Knoxville – US*
Buy My Bananas, Kate Werble Gallery, New York – US
Re-generation, curated by Maria Alicata and Ilaria Gianni, Museo D’Arte Contemporanea Roma (MACRO), Rome – IT
Weighted Words, curated by Ellen Mara De Wachter, Zabludowicz Collection, London – UK
Rear View Mirror, Space B, New York – US
2011
Doublespeak, Salt Lake Art Centre, Salt Lake City – US
Words: Videos from the Collection of Marlene Nathan Myerson, Brand 10 Art Space, Fort Worth – US
Stagecraft: Brian Bress, Deville Cohen, Kate Gilmore, Mary Reid Kelley, University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum (USFCAM), Tampa – US
Images From a Floating World, Fredericks & Freiser, New York – US
Texture.txt, Regina Rex, New York – US
2010
The Dissolve, SITE Sante Fe International Biennal, Santa Fe – US*
Mash-up: Splicing Life, The University of Connecticut Contemporary Art Galleries, Storrs – US
Fast Forward 2: The Power of Motion, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe – DE
Ludicrous!, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Philadelphia – US
2008
Will Happiness Fine Me?, Marvelli Gallery, New York – US
2006
Uncle Tom to Peeping Tom, Wisconsin African American Women’s Center (WAAW), Milwaukee – US
2005
Pinko Commies, Altered Esthetics Gallery, Minneapolis – US
2004
Draw, SooVisual Art Center, Minneapolis – US
SCREENINGS, FESTIVALS, AND PERFORMANCES
2017
Warm lights travel on my ghostly hands, curated by Karim Crippa, Schwartzwaldallee, Basel – CH
This Is Offal, Vdrome.org
Artist Focus: Mary Reid Kelley, screening and talk with Jens Hoffmann, Jewish Museum, New York – US
2016
Fireflies in the Night Take Wing: International Video Art Survey, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Athens – GR
This Is Offal, Live Performance, Playground Performance Festival, STUK, Leuven – BE
This Is Offal, Live Performance, Foreign Affairs Festival, Berliner Festspiele – DE
You’ve Got to Give Some Muffin for This Space, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam – NL
2015
This is Offal, BMW Tate Live: Performance Room, Tate Modern, London – UK
2014
Animation in Context, CCA Glasgow, Glasgow – UK
2013
Priapus Agonistes as part of Ericka Beckman: Image games – work in context, Tate Modern, London – UK
Priapus Agonistes, Mykonos Bienniale, Mykonos – GR
Collar City Film Festival, Troy – US
Séances, conceived by Paul Chan and curated by Eric de Bruyn and Sven Lütticken, Columbia University, New York – US
2012
Séances, conceived by Paul Chan and curated by Eric de Bruyn and Sven Lütticken, The Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK), Vienna – AT
Montreal Underground Film Festival, Quebec – CA
2011
FIDMarseille Film Festival, Marseille – FR
Idiot Wind, contributing artist to e-flux Journal 22, edited by Paul Chan and Sven Lütticken
Screening and lecture at Salina Art Center, Salina – US
2010
Signal & Noise Media Art Festival, VIVO Media Arts Center, Vancouver – CA
Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine College of Art (ICA at MECA), Portland – US
Imagining Equality: Women’s Art and Activism, The Bellarmine Forum, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles – CA
2008
Contributing artist to Interval(le)s, Journal, University of Liège Publications, Liège – BE
Guest Lecturer, Women and Art at Yale, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven – US
EDUCATION
2009
MFA, Yale University School of Art, New Haven
2001
Bachelor of Arts, Magna cum Laude, St. Olaf College, Minneapolis
AWARDS, GRANTS AND RESIDENCIES
2016
The MacArthur Fellowship Programme
Baloise Art prize, Art Basel 2016, Basel
2015
AICA Award Nominated Exhibition, Mary Reid Kelley: Working Objects and Videos at SUNY New Paltz, Dorsky Museum
2014
Tiffany Foundation 2013 Biennial Grant
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
2012
The Shifting Foundation Grant
2011
Joseph H.Hazen Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome
Production Residency at EMPAC, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
2009
Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant
Alice Kimball English Travel Fellowship, Yale University
2008
CCA Visual Arts Fellowship
Schoelkopf Travel Grant, Yale UniversityBeinecke Library Research Fellowship, Yale University
Beinecke Library Research Fellowship, Yale University
2004
Jerome Foundation Artist Residency Fellowship at Blacklock Nature Sanctuary
2001
Art Apprenticeship, Residency at St. Olaf College, Department of Art and Art History
*Indicates publication
MARY REID KELLEY AT ART ENCOUNTERS
Art Encounters 2017 lies at the intersection between an experimental art festival and a contemporary art biennial, and focuses on Romania’s cultural connections with its geographic neighbours. Entitled Life a User’s Manual, the central exhibition curated by Ami Barak and … More
Mary Reid Kelley at Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool presents a new commission by Mary Reid Kelley, which will be her first museum solo exhibition in the UK. Reid Kelley combines painting, performance, and her distinctive poetry in black and white stylised videos. Made in collaboration with … More
Mary Reid Kelley at Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery presents a film of Mary Reid Kelley as part of Artists’ Film International. Mary Reid Kelley collaborates with her partner Patrick Kelley on the stylised black and white video This is Offal (2016), an absurdist take on TV … More
Mary Reid Kelley at the Jewish Museum NYC
Mary Reid Kelley is taking part in The Arcades: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin at the Jewish Museum NYC. This exhibition of contemporary artworks presents photography, video, sculpture, and painting seen through the lens of influential philosopher Walter Benjamin’s magnum … More
Mary Reid Kelley on Vdrome
Vdrome, an online screening platform, presents a film of Mary Reid Kelley, This is Offal. A film questions the univocal rhetorics of modern science inasmuch as the classical artistic representations of the female body. During an autopsy, confused organs – … More
Mary Reid Kelley ‘We’re Wallowing Here in Your Disco Tent’ at High Line, New York
Mary Reid Kelley’s program features five videos: Camel Toe (2008), The Thong of Dionysus (2015), The Queen’s English (2008), Sadie, The Saddest Sadist (2009). September 1 – November 2, 2016 6:00 PM daily until the park closes High Line Channel 14, 14th Street Passage, on the … More
Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley will be performing at Berliner Festspiele
A pun-filled work of existentialist feminist horror, “This Is Offal” by Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley ghoulishly enacts Camus’ philosophy of the absurd as a counter to suicide. As the organs liver, heart and brain argue over what happened … More
Mary Reid Kelly wins the 18th Baloise Art Prize, Art Basel
Mary Reid Kelley has been awarded the Baloise Prize for her film This Is Offal, which takes a unique and intense approach to the sensitive topic of female suicide. Echoing the tradition of the theater of the absurd, the film … More
Mary Reid Kelley “A Marquee Piece of Sod”—The WWI films of Mary Reid Kelley at Kunsthalle Bremen
In Reid Kelley’s first solo exhibition in a European museum, the Kunsthalle Bremen presents her four- part film cycle on the First World War. The black-and-white films, based on extensive research, oscillate between drawings that are brought to life and … More
Mary Reid Kelley at CCA, Warsaw
The Objects Do Things project appeals to the pleasure we get from engaging with the world of the imagination. It is shaped by the changes that have taken place in the visual arts in the past few years: the appearance … More
Mary Reid Kelley, BMW Tate Live: Performance Room, London
Mary Reid Kelley presents a new work inspired by Thomas Hood’s 1844 poem The Bridge of Sighs in which the narrator laments the apparent suicide of a young woman, whose body he pulls from the Thames. This Is Offal traverses … More
Mary Reid Kelley at Hammer Museum
Beginning with Priapus Agonistes (2013), Reid Kelley explores the Greek myth of the Minotaur, turning the hybrid creature into half woman rather than man. In the second video of this series exploring the Minotaur’s family history, Swinburne’s Pasiphae (2014), Reid Kelley brings to life … More
Mary Reid Kelley awarded 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded Mary Reid Kelly a Fellowship in the ninetieth annual round of the Guggenheim Fellowship Awards. This year the foundation awarded 177 Fellowships to a diverse group of 178 scholars, artists, and scientists. … More
Mary Reid Kelley at Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art and University Art Museum at Albany
Mary Reid Kelley: Working Objects and Videos, curated by Daniel Belasco, will be the first museum exhibition devoted to the finely crafted and researched costumes, objects, and drawings that Mary Reid Kelley creates for her videos, in collaboration with Patrick Kelley. These … More
Mary Reid Kelley at Tate Modern, London
Mary Reid Kelley’s new film Priapus Agonistes (2013) is included in an evening screening ‘Ericka Beckman: Image games – work in context’ at the Tate Modern, chosen by curator Isobel Harbison. Part of a weekend retrospective screening of Amercian artist Ericka Beckman’s work ‘Ericka Beckman: … More
Mary Reid Kelly at AOMA-Arthouse, Austin
Mary Reid Kelly will present the solo exhibition of The Syphilis of Sisyphus from July 2013 at the AMOA-Arthouse in Austin, Texas. Co-directed with Patrick Kelley and set in 1852 before the modernization of Paris, The Syphilis of Sisyphus is an … More
Mary Reid Kelley at ICA, Boston
Mary Reid Kelly has her first museum solo exhibition at The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston from July, 2013. The exhibition includes a selection of black-and-white videos created between 2008 and the present, featuring Kelley playing multiple roles. Among the works … More
Mary Reid Kelley at MACRO, Rome
Mary Reid Kelley’s group show Re-generation at the MACRO in Rome closed this week. The young curators of the exhibition, Maria Alicata and Ilaria Gianni, had selected the work of thirty young artists who significantly contributed to the artistic development … More
Mary Reid Kelley at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
In October 2012 Mary Reid Kelley will show her 2011 film The Syphilis of Sisyphus at the Box/Wexner Center for the Art, The Ohio State University. Within an elaborated black and white painted set, the artist plays a pregnant nineteenth-century … More
Mary Reid Kelley in group exhibition at Zabludowicz Collection, London
Pilar Corrias Gallery is delighted to announce Mary Reid Kelley participation in the group exhibition, Weighted Words at The Zabludowicz Collection in London. The exhibition will present works by Ed Atkins, Omer Fast, Ruth Ewan, Dani Gal, Glenn Ligon, Mary Reid Kelley, … More
Mary Reid Kelley wins the Rome Prize
Pilar Corrias Gallery is delighted to announce that Mary Reid Kelley has been awarded the Rome Prize by the America Academy in Rome. The American Academy in Rome awards the Rome Prize to a select group of artists and scholars, … More
Ana Teixeria Pinto, Mary Reid Kelley, Frieze, January 2017 (Download PDF)
Eva Fischer-Hausdorf, Mary Kelley in Conversation with Fischer, v-drome, January 2017 (Download PDF)
Dennis Kardon, Mary Reid Kelley, Art in America, April 2016 (Download PDF)
Travis Jappesen, Mary Reid Kelley at Arratia Beer, Artforum Picks, April 2016 (Download PDF)
Ana Texeira Pinto, Mary Reid Kelley’s “The Minotaur Trilogy”, Art Agenda, April 2016 (Download PDF)
Emily Gonzalez-Jarrett, “Mary Reid Kelley”, Hammer Museum, September 2015 (Download PDF)
Brian Boucher, “Mary Reid Kelley’s Lush Videos Take On the Minotaur and Nicki Minaj”, October 2015 (Download PDF)
Mary Reid Kelley, Artdaily, September 2014 (Download PDF)
Scott Indrisek, “Victorian Porn-Poem Inspires Mary Reid Kelley”, BLOUIN ARTINFO (Download PDF)
Sharon Mizota, “Around the Galleries”, Los Angeles Times, June 2013 (Download PDF)
Allese Thomson, “Mary Reid Kelley”, Artforum, August 2013 (Download PDF)
Brian Boucher, “Mary Reid Kelley, In Plain Frenglish”, Art in America, November 2011 (Download PDF)
Kate Forde, “Mary Reid Kelley”, Frieze, November-December 2010 (Download PDF)
Michele Robecchi, “Mary Reid Kelley”, Flash Art, November-December 2010 (Download PDF)
Steven Henry Madoff, “Mary Reid Kelley”, Artforum, November 2009 (Download PDF)
Mixtape 2016
Pilar Corrias presents Mixtape 2016, a compilation of film and video from nine gallery artists. The exhibition devotes two days to each artist, showcasing the unique aesthetics of their practices and collectively the diversity of the gallery programme. Mixtape 2016 stems from … More
Mary Reid Kelley: Swinburne’s Pasiphae
Pilar Corrias is pleased to present Swinburne’s Pasiphae, the second solo exhibition by American artist Mary Reid Kelley with the gallery, featuring a new film alongside props, drawings, and photographic portraits. Swinburne’s Pasiphae (2014) follows Priapus Agonistes (2013) in an … More
Mary Reid Kelley ‘You Make Me Iliad’
Pilar Corrias Gallery is delighted to announce the first exhibition of Mary Reid Kelley in the UK. Mary Reid Kelley works with video, animation, painting and performance as means to question the stability of language and its role in historical … More