{"data":{"id":"10293","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":10293,"topgoose_id":10906,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":10293,"title":"Educational Complex","display_artist_text":"Mike Kelley","display_date":"1995","accession_number":"96.50","dimensions":"Overall: 57 3/4 × 192 3/16 × 96 1/8 in. (146.7 × 488.2 × 244.2 cm)","medium":"Painted foam core, fiberglass, plywood, wood, plexiglass and mattress","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"Purchase, with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eMike Kelley, \u003cem\u003eEducational Complex\u003c/em\u003e, 1995. Painted foam core, fiberglass, plywood, wood, plexiglass and mattress, overall: 57 3/4 × 192 3/16 × 96 1/8 in. (146.7 × 488.2 × 244.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Committee 96.50. © The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eA representation of every school Mike Kelley attended, as well as the house that he grew up in—with all parts that he has since forgotten omitted—\u003ci\u003eEducational Complex\u003c/i\u003e is a reconstruction of the artist’s past in the form of a tabletop architectural model. Elaborating on his earlier works—frequently made with stuffed-animals—that critique the sentimentality with which American culture regards childhood, \u003ci\u003eEducational Complex\u003c/i\u003e presents a return to one’s past as a subjective, perhaps impossible proposition. As the artist himself estimated, the spaces he depicted from memory represent only a small fraction of the actual structures on which they are based. According to Kelley,\u003ci\u003e Educational Complex\u003c/i\u003e was intended to evoke not only his own memories, but also broader social issues concerning childhood. As he remarked, it\u003ci\u003e \u003c/i\u003e“was done directly in response to the rising infatuation of the public with issues of Repressed Memory Syndrome and child abuse. . .and the popularization of. . .therapy which was predicated on the idea that certain traumatic events. . .are repressed and only removed later through therapy.”\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A detailed white architectural model is displayed on a long wooden table under a large window.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T16:38:23.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:00:34.026-05:00","images":[{"id":101130,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/10293/96_50_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"3105","type":"artist"}]}}}}