Extracurricular Activity Projective Reconstruction #26A (Pink Curtain)

A large, motorized fuchsia curtain moves in circles in a dark room. The figure of a dancer is projected on its undulating surface, its shape changing according to the installation's mechanical movement. Both sensuous and ghostly, Mike Kelley's Pink Curtain looks like a fun fair attraction whose naiveté and repetitive character seem to hide some underlying drama.

Pink Curtain was featured in the Day is Done exhibition at Gagosian in New York where the artist recreated activities that punctuate the school year in the US, in particular those he considers as “socially accepted rituals of deviance.” These events become “ordinary traumas” that are recounted through bold multimedia installations interrogating sexual desire and sexuality.

Pink Curtain was first shown by the Pinault Collection in 2006 at the Where Are We Going? exhibition at Palazzo Grassi, in Venice.