Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs: John Kelly, born in 1965 in England, embodies with rare virtuosity this new generation of artists who transcend geographical and conceptual boundaries while keeping a sharp eye on our era. An artist with three passports—British, Australian, and Irish—he has become one of the most incisive critics of the institutionalization of contemporary art, developing a body of work deeply rooted in history and collective memory, all while maintaining a healthy ironic distance from the art world.
His journey is as unconventional as it is fascinating. Coming from a modest family in Sunshine, a suburb of Melbourne, Kelly owes his entry into the art world to an almost novelistic circumstance: his mother, unable to fund his studies, won a “Win a Wish” contest on a milk carton, enabling him to attend the RMIT art school. This anecdote may seem trivial, but it perfectly illustrates Kelly’s ability to transform life’s coincidences into artistic material. Later, he would use the image of the cow, a symbol of this initial victory, as a central leitmotif in his work.
Let’s talk about his monumental cows, those surreal sculptures that brought him international fame. These improbable bovines originate in an almost mythological tale from World War II, where artist William Dobell allegedly created papier-mâché decoys to mislead Japanese aviation. Kelly seizes upon this dubious historical anecdote—no photographic evidence supports the existence of these cows—and uses it as the starting point for a masterful reflection on illusion and representation. His sculpture “Cow Up a Tree”, a colossal eight-meter-high work exhibited on the Champs-Élysées in 1999, represents the pinnacle of this approach. This cow suspended in the air, seemingly levitating among the branches of an eucalyptus tree, becomes a powerful metaphor for our relationship with truth and artifice.
Kelly’s art is deeply anchored in history while remaining resolutely contemporary. His references to William Dobell and World War II are not mere historical citations but starting points for a reflection on our relationship with reality and truth. In a world where the manipulation of images and facts has become commonplace, his papier-mâché cows take on an almost prophetic dimension.
Kelly goes even further with “Three Cows in a Pile”, presented at the Monte Carlo International Sculpture Festival in 2002. The improbable stacking of these monumental bovines creates a striking visual tension, playing with notions of balance and imbalance. This work evokes Jean Baudrillard’s reflections on simulacra and hyperreality. In our contemporary world saturated with images and fake news, Kelly’s decoys resonate profoundly, reminding us that art has always had the ability to play with our perceptions of reality.
But Kelly doesn’t stop at creating visually spectacular works. His series on the Australia Council for the Arts logo represents one of the sharpest critiques of the bureaucratization of art I have ever observed. This series, born of an administrative constraint—the obligation to use the Council’s logo on his works in exchange for a modest grant—becomes in his hands a manifesto against the institutionalization of art. By appropriating this official symbol—a kangaroo and a sun—Kelly directly engages with Michel Foucault’s studies on the relationship between power and knowledge. Each manipulation of the logo becomes an act of resistance against what Foucault called “disciplinary power”, here embodied by art institutions seeking to format art according to marketing criteria.
The irony peaks when these works are used for Moo Brew beer labels, commissioned by David Walsh, the founder of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania. Kelly thus transforms a critique of art’s commodification into a commercial product, creating a dizzying mise en abyme that questions our relationship with cultural consumption. This ability to turn the system’s constraints against itself reveals an artist who masterfully navigates the art world’s codes while maintaining a critical distance.
Kelly’s use of history and collective memory is particularly striking. His work on the Irish Great Famine, notably in his Reen Farm commemorative garden, demonstrates his ability to transform historical traumas into contemporary artistic experiences. Incorporating N.M. Cummins’ letter published in The Times in 1846 into a miniature reproduction of the Tate Modern, Kelly creates a fascinating dialogue between past and present, between personal and collective memory. This approach echoes Maurice Halbwachs’ theories on collective memory, showing how art can serve as a medium to preserve and transmit the memory of traumatic events.
Kelly demonstrates exceptional mastery in interweaving personal and collective history. His installation The N.M. Cummins Think and Thank Garden at Reen Farm is particularly emblematic of this approach. By creating a passage between two hills leading to a spectacular view of the sea, Kelly transforms the landscape into a powerful metaphor for the journey between life and death, between past and present. This site, where he scattered his father’s ashes, becomes a space for meditation on transmission, memory, and mourning.
His 2013 artist residency in Antarctica marked a turning point in his work. The paintings he brought back capture the sublime desolation of this continent with rare intensity. These works evoke Edmund Burke’s concept of the sublime, where terror and beauty intertwine to create a profoundly moving aesthetic experience. Kelly conveys not only the physical grandeur of the Antarctic landscape but also its metaphysical dimension, confronting us with our own insignificance in the face of nature’s immensity.
Kelly possesses the rare ability to combine biting humor with deep reflections on the human condition. His monumental sculptures merge impressive technical mastery with a sharp sense of the absurd reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp’s spirit. However, while Duchamp used irony to question the very nature of art, Kelly employs it to critique the institutionalization of art and the commodification of culture.
His battle against the bureaucratization of art, notably exemplified by his dispute with a Parisian art dealer who sued him for five years, reveals an artist who refuses to bow to the market’s dictates. This legal battle, which resulted in a €20,000 fine for “commercial parasitism”, paradoxically showcases how Kelly transforms even legal obstacles into artistic material. This stance recalls the Situationists, who sought to subvert the codes of the society of the spectacle. Kelly, however, goes further by turning these constraints into creative opportunities, proving that it is possible to critique the system while creating works of great aesthetic power.
His sculpture Man Lifting Cow, installed in Sunshine in 2016, perfectly illustrates this ability to weave connections between personal and collective history. This 4.5-meter-high monumental work depicts a man in overalls—reminiscent of his father, who worked in a quarry—lifting one of Dobell’s cows. The work thus becomes a touching tribute to his working-class roots while fitting into his broader reflection on Australian art history.
Kelly is also an artist engaged in public debate. His articles published in Art Monthly Australia and Circa magazine demonstrate a sharp critical mind. His nomination for the Walkley Award for arts journalism in 2017 attests to his ability to articulate complex ideas in an accessible manner. This facet of his work aligns with a tradition of artist-theorists, recalling the writings of Ad Reinhardt or Robert Smithson.
His ability to work on different scales is remarkable. From meticulous miniatures of existing museums to monumental sculptures dominating urban landscapes, Kelly demonstrates impressive technical skill. This virtuosity never becomes gratuitous, always serving a broader purpose about the nature of art and its relationship to institutions.
Kelly is an artist who never ceases to surprise and challenge us. His work, both playful and profound, technical and conceptual, reminds us that art can still be a tool for resistance and critical reflection while retaining its ability to move and amaze us. In an art world often dominated by conformity and trends, Kelly remains a free spirit, a creator who refuses easy compromises and continues to explore new avenues of expression.
His recent work continues to push boundaries. His paintings of Irish landscapes, particularly those created around Castlehaven and in the Burren, showcase an artist capable of renewing himself while maintaining remarkable coherence in his approach. These seemingly simple works reveal a deep understanding of pictorial tradition while offering a contemporary perspective on the landscape.
Kelly perfectly embodies the figure of the contemporary artist capable of transcending geographical and conceptual boundaries while maintaining a strong anchor in critical reflection on our times. His work reminds us that art can be both accessible and complex, critical and poetic, personal and universal. In an increasingly standardized art world, his singular voice resonates as a call to creative resistance.