It was impossible to absorb every twisted, raucous and mesmerizing moment of Los Angeles–based artist Mike Kelley’s Day Is Done—a multipart reconstruction, in blaring video and fun house–style sculptural vignettes, of all the schools Kelley had attended. The epic and episodic work, which debuted in November 2005 at Gagosian Gallery in New York, was meant to expose the perverse, even satanic elements of such “wholesome" extracurricular rituals as the high-school play. For those who want to relive the carnivalesque experience, Yale University Press has finally published a 500-page catalogue ($125), also titled Day Is Done, complete with essays, stage notes, more than 600 illustrations and two CDs of the accompanying sound track, making what Kelley himself terms a Gesamtkunstwerk a truly complete work of art.
—MEGHAN DAILEY, FEATURES EDITOR