Not many artists count as a game-changer for art. Mike Kelley did. His work altered the international conversation about art, and it changed the Los Angeles art world. His death Tuesday at 57 is an unspeakable loss.

That it should come midway through Pacific Standard Time is its own tragic memorial. The Getty-sponsored extravaganza of Southern California museum exhibitions tells some of the back story to the city's 1980s rise as an international contemporary art powerhouse. That decade witnessed a huge expansion in the city's existing art infrastructure, but nothing was more important than the exploding depth and breadth of the talent pool. Many artists contributed to it. Kelley? He was at the forefront, leader of the pack.

I met Mike in 1978. Fresh from CalArts, he had been invited by my then-curatorial colleague, Richard Armstrong, now director of the Guggenheim Museum, to do an evening performance piece at the La Jolla (now San Diego) Museum of Contemporary Art. In the sleepy seaside village of La Jolla, performance art was a tough enough sell, never mind that the artist was virtually unknown. A handful of people showed up. Lucky them.

Uong Jowo

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