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"We would just lock ourselves up in his compound on Figueroa, eat, drink, and look at cartoons and theme-related movies around babies. We started brainstorming. Mike said, maybe we should send the baby to a rave... how about Burning Man?"—Michael Smith on the genesis of A Voyage of Growth and Discovery (2009), a video installation made with Mike Kelley.

[IMAGES: Stills from A Voyage of Growth and Discovery, DVD published by ArtPix, 2011]

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That’s artist John Miller exploring Mike Kelley’s Educational Complex (1995), a multi-layered, dynamic installation that found the artist examining school as a “legitimation” of his career success, while locating it rhetorically as a site of abuse. The author of a forthcoming book about the work, Miller discusses in depth on MOCAtv.

Mike Kelley - John Miller - MOCA U - MOCAtv

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Philippe Vergne first encountered the work of Mike Kelley in MOCA's landmark exhibition Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s. Now the director of the museum, Vergne reflects on Mike Kelley, the largest exhibition of Kelley's work to date and the late artist's unofficial Los Angeles homecoming.

"When you look at this exhibition, not only do you have an artist who has changed the way we think of art, who brought to art music, performances and popular culture, who has made a major aesthetic shift in our understanding of art," says Vergne, "but has done that also with an understanding of what it means to be an artist in the public realm, and be a civic artist."

Don't forget to chat with Vergne tomorrow on Twitter. He'll be taking your questions about all things MOCA—including Mike Kelley—from 1:30-2:30 pm with #askMOCA.

Mike Kelley - Philippe Vergne - MOCA U - MOCAtv

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The installation of Jacob Hashimoto's Gas Giant took 25 days, seven people, and over 30 thousand paper "kites" suspended from the ceilings of MOCA Pacific Design Center. Watch the whole process as a time lapse on MOCAtv, from the first day of installation to the opening night reception.

Jacob Hashimoto - Gas Giant - MOCA U - MOCAtv

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In ArtForum's Best of 2013 issue, artist and White Columns chief curator Matthew Higgs lauds Creative Growth Art Center as "among the most farsighted and profoundly optimistic arts organizations I have ever encountered," and calls their recent showing of works by Dan Miller and William Scott "focused and revelatory." We feature work from Miller and Scott in our documentary about the Oakland-based nonprofit and studio.

Creative Growth - MOCA U - MOCAtv

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In the latest issue of ArtForum, both Michael Ned Holte and Lynn Cooke named Blues for Smoke, an exhibition organized for MOCA by Bennett Simpson, in their Best of 2013 lists. Watch our video playlist about the blues—including this interview with Nas—on MOCAtv.

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In collaboration with the celebrated painter and installation artist, video director Jeremy Rall refigures Rodney McMillian’s Representation of a Landscape as a Wall for MOCAtv.

Just as McMillian often pushes painting into the realm of textiles, Rall transforms our video viewing into a tactile experience. His camera takes McMillian’s title literally, scaling the immense scale of the work like a cliff and navigating its contours like a forest. Crashes of lightening from the score echo within the streaks of McMillian’s colors: pools of purple, ripples of red, and luscious blacks.

McMillian’s Landscape takes on multiple meanings: landscapes of earth and self, external and internal, which merge in the distressed, despairing landscapes of culture itself.

Representation of a Landscape as a Wall is on view at MOCA Grand Avenue as part of Room to Live through January 12, 2014.

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