Seminal Los Angeles-based artist and writer Mike Kelley has said, looking back on his career, "I didn't want to be a rock musician; I wanted to be an artist. And I think the reason I chose it was that at that time it was the most despicable thing you could be in American culture... I came from a milieu in which artists were despised, whereas rock musicians and drug dealers were, you know, hipster culture heroes." Along with a selection of essays (including several by Kelley on his individual works), an extensive checklist and a glossary, this volume compiles 40 of the artist's key pieces from the last three decades from the discriminating and influential collection of Ingvild Goetz, who opened her first gallery in 1969 with groundbreaking exhibitions of leading Arte Povera artists, as well as Andy Warhol, Arakawa, Bruce Nauman, Jurgen Klauke, Jochen Gerz and Cy Twombly.