John Miller Revisits Mike Kelley's Educational Complex Through Pandemic Lens

On June 18, 2020, John Miller published an essay for ArtSchool 2020, collaborating with Central Saint Martins and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, where he examines Mike Kelley’s 1995 work, Educational Complex, in light of the COVID-19 crisis and its effects on art schools. Kelley's foam-core models represent the seven schools he attended and his childhood home, with forgotten spaces symbolizing instances of alleged abuse—a critique of the education system. Miller notes how CalArts' teaching, shaped by John Baldessari and John Cage, encouraged students to develop their artistic identities within a void, initially backed by Disney until 1977. He argues that art education is like a Ponzi scheme, facing a potential 10-30% drop in enrollment due to the pandemic. Miller connects Kelley's themes of absence and projection to Kantian philosophy and Surrealism, suggesting that Kelley's forgotten rooms reflect the looming decline of art schools, echoing Marx and Engels' idea that "all that is solid melts into air."