#gotta draw mirage fully at some point

[siyratiin]

insane!!! what!!! v models!!!

[starlight-ascension]

My friend who live sent the reactions to Fresh is now watching Heartcatch. I have been waiting months for this and I bet you have too.

For episodes 31 through 34, I will be doing the direct, unedited copy-paste that I did when I posted the reactions to Setsuna’s arc. 

☾━━━━༺☾❀☽༻━━━━☽ ☾━━━━༺☾❀☽༻━━━━☽ ☾━━━━༺☾❀☽༻━━━━☽

EPISODE 31

Imma watch episode 31 now

Well, this is an exciting start!

WOOP!!!! 

Cure Blossom: "Your withered heart flower has been used! Return to your former self!" Desertrian: *confusion*

"Same thing, over and over again!" Is this lampshading or--

Welp, that's the end of that fight. New record for earliest time in an episode for a fight to end! Unless I'm forgetting some older episodes that also started with a fight and finished quickly. But I THINK that this one is a new record.

"A flower can be this beautiful?" 0_0

Ooooh, is this showing possibility for redemption???? don't answer that

Theme song time!

Fly on the tree 

Oh, hey Yuri!!

caught "Yuri-san" when overhearing (and not looking at of course) the title [context: when she started fresh, i advised her to close her eyes when the title card pops up because of spoiler titles being very common] 

So these flowers are called amaryllis. They really are nice aren't they

Ooh, echoing footsteps. And dang, won't even let the fairies so much as touch her now

Aw, Potpourri doesn't look too happy about the rejected hug

"We can't procrastinate until the last second like what happened to summer homework." Learned her lesson with that and hung onto it. Good for her. Wish I could say the same for myself, but... :-/

they have their heads hung with their faces cast in shadow

Oh! :-D :-D Well that's awesome!

"Let's have Momoka-san come as a special guest!" Are...are you guys sure about that? Welp, okay. Wait she's gonna ask Yuri too???? 

I mean...she's not wrong

This should be interesting

Wait, who's THIS

They have glowy glasses

"Mr. 2nd place"? 2nd place in what?

Saintani. Interesting how if you take out the "I"s and the first "N" you get Satan XD Oh dang that guys is a fast typer

Next test?

The shiny wobbly eyes from Yuri after Tsubomi says the theme is "A New Myself"

...Look at all the staaarrrs (*o*) (*o*) (*o*)

OH FRICK

HOLY FRICK HOLY FRICK

Talking to Dune again. Hmm.

"I've got them in my palms already." You liar.

"Maybe I should go on a journey?" Ooooh, a journey? THIS should be good

*both her teammates look at her* *Cobraja's face mask cleanly peels off*"What's wrong with you?" "Is it love? But you can't fall in love with me. I'm too pretty for you."

Oh hello Dark Precure. Haven't seen YOU in awhile...

Dark Bracelet?

"When you use this, the Desertrian will turn dark, bad, and violent immediately." What????????

JFKHNFIONGIJORGNWRJKNWRJGBERNJGKLRBNGJKISBNINJUKBGWRJLGHWRJOGBHJOGRWNBGOIWRBGIOFNHJRKLGNSFJKGBNSWOGIRUWBNEOUINGRWBRWGIOWRBGORUWBGOUJRWUGBNERJBGURWNJGNRWGJRWLBNJORWGHNRWIJGRWNG

SASORINA, NO!!!!1!

D~= D~= D~= D~= D~=

Wait, Yuri...LOST her Heart Flower???

Oh...

"But do you want your fairy to stay like this?" Stay like...what... Wait, is she talking about...

Yeah. I'm sure if she can start to heal again it'll come back.

*sings like Gumball and Darwin* Do do do do do!` Commercial break!

Well THAT was a mood whiplash

They're out in their pajamas? XD and Itsuki's fully dressed and bright-eyed without hairs sticking out or anything

Mm. Yeah. Maybe give her a bit of time.

XD fairies inching along the ground like caterpillars XD XD XD XD XD XD 

Saintani's exaggerated "NAAAANIIII?!?!?!?!" XD XD XD XD XD !!

"I'm losing my conviction..." Okay, the way he sounds just...sad, saying this, not even frustrated or anything. Hmm. And Sasorina's walking up.

Yuri?

!!!! 

Well frick she got him. And this time she has the Dark Bracelet...

Transformation time!

YEAH! WOOP! YEAAAH!

"A loser should just give up. Just accept that and go crazy." FRICK NO THEY SHOULDN'T! Y--wait, I'm realizing this could be like a parallel? To Yuri? Because Sasorina called her a loser reminding her of the fight she lost? And if Saintani shouldn't give up just because he keeps losing than Yuri shouldn't give up either and--

But, like, also the thing he keeps "losing" at is...studying? And as satisfying as it must be to come in first there, though second does mean he still came ahead of lots and lots of people, competing isn't really the point of studying, is it? the point is to learn and stuff. Right?

Yessss Blossom! Preach!

Oh no

No, no, NO--

NO !!!!!!

STOP STOP STOP

There's gotta be SOME way to stop this before it's too late--!!!!

REHIOGBHRWIOGWHRBGIOURWBGOIURW

GHWRJOIGBRWOUGBHROUGRWBNGJRWNGIJRWNGJWONGWIOGHEWIONGRWEOGNWR

WHAT ARE THE FAIRIES DOING

Come on guys, come on, you can get out of those things...

YES!!!! Y E S ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

"So annoying, the bonds of Precure! I'll defeat you next time!" she says as she hangs upside down in a tree

"Someone said this in my dream. 'What's important is climbing right back up when you're down, a strong heart.'" she's right you know. And you could take that advice yourself Yuri.

Wait, SPINACH?

Twerk-and-poop time

Chartreuse. Nice.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 ToT ToT ToT ToT ToT ToT ToT !!!!!!

end theme!

EPISODE 32

And we start with Cure Blossom and Cure Marine punching evil monkeys! And Cure Sunshine exploding them! WOO!!!

What...what is going ON

It looks totally EPIC but like WHAT is going ON =~O 

HNDUFOBEWIOGBRWIOGBRNGJOLNOUGSJKLBGSIOBRWIOGWBJWHBRWJUHWEOIHWUOHWIOGHWOUGHNHJSBJKDSNUJBUGRWBGOIUWBGRWIOJNDSJKGBSNDJHKGNSGUIWBGUIWGEWUREWOUGBHJFKBNSJKSBDG

SERIOUSLY FLASH BACK RIGHT NOW

Wait was this a vision her grandma had of the future darkest moment in the climax before they save everything? 

Why we zooming in on her necklace

Theme song time!

Gotta wonder what Sabaaku's face looks like under that mask...

Coppe-sama is large and fluffy <3

Hmm. Yeah, keeping on fighting Desertrians under the effects of the Dark Bracelet could be challenging to say the very least. And the stakes have definitely been raised.

"And then we remembered that Cure Flower had some really awesome powers!" OOOOH like what!

Heartcatch Mirage? What is THAT

"It's a mysterious item that gives the Precure unlimited power." 

Unlimited power...mm. In my experience with media that sort of things doesn't come without some kind of price...

Oh wow I was hoping we'd get a glimpse of what she looked like as Cure Flower

Dune was a menacing-looking dark glowing giant with long flowing hair a claw fingers and stuff? The small glimpses of him we've seen had him looking like a teenager. Maybe this is him at full power and he's currently not at full power?

Oh wOw

Precure Palace?

I'm a little uneasy about this idea, but the Desert Messengers ARE getting stronger and there don't seem to be any other options.

A terrible test? Ohhh THIS should be good... OOOOH ENCHANTED TREE DOOR

Yes, go with them Yuri!

(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*)(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"The palace of Dune, the King of the Desert Messengers, draws near." What ??

(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The place is really beautiful

Welp, transformation time I guess

I remember it took me awhile at first to stop expecting them to say "freshly picked" before their cure names

Treasure hunt

"It's too high up!" Y'all can give yourself glowy capes that make you fly, remember? If you fall you can just do that... except for Yuri I mean... *awkward pause* wELP imma just keep watching

Wha-- Ohhh it's the Heart Tree!

"Just like that time." Huh?

"The Heart Tree comes to watch over the test to receive the Heartcatch Mirage." Ohhh. Cool! I wondered why it was here.

Flashback!...Oh... Oh wow...The inside of the palace is pretty too 

HDJSHFJRHGEJORJUGH That's...not really her, is it

Defeat her? 

*sings like Gumball and Darwin* Do do do do do! Commercial break! 

You've got this, guys!

So there WERE generations of precure before Cure Flower (I forget if we'd learned this for certain already or not, only that there were none between Cure Flower and Cure Moonlight) 

"I do not wish to fight you too, Tsubomi, even if this is only a test." </3 <3

Him? Who's--? *jaw drops at the sight of the rose petals* =~O =~O =~O =~O =~O =~O !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Harsh way of saying it...but I mean, she's not wrong.

And, I have wondered why he appears like this. Why he has the rose-petal powers and everything. 

Yeah, why IS he here in the Precure palace... And they seriously call him "mysterious hot guy" or "hot guy"

You can do this, guys!!!!

*pours more goldfish crackers* YES GO GO YOU CAN DO IT

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES 

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

YES YES YES YEAH 

WOOP!!!!!!!!!!!! 

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Coppe-sama! I knew they were magical doppelgangers of some kind 

wait WHAT IT WAS COPPE-SAMA THE WHOLE TIME NDJSLFHDSJFHJUBURHJURHGJUHJUHRUJHHJKDLSHFIOW 

"Another lost love"? Somecreature who looked exactly like your grandpa?

=~D

*sings* You gOtta take the UpgrAyAyAyAyADE! Gotta take the UpgrAyAyAyADE--

(*O*)(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought I saw something like this in the eyecatch...

Yeah! She could! (and she will if the opening and the eyecatch are anything to go off of)

*screams into pillow* 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

*collapses backward grinning ear to ear and laughing*

☾EPISODE 33☽

Cool start

Flashback!

"I...I didn't do much to help you." I mean, you're part of the reason they actually ended up going to do this...

"You girls overcame the test with your strong bonds of friendship." Mm. Yeah. True. They did that together themselves without her help.

"So very different from I, who fought alone."

Are you sure it's impossible? I mean, it's okay if you're not READY yet either way but like, IS it?

"Use it and see my Heart Flower!" Ohhhh, right, that

Oh...

Cologne? THAT'S her fairy's name? 

Wait, was that Cologne talking just now??????

Theme song time!

How did her dad know about the Heart Tree though...

Upperclassman? They have school? I mean, I probably shouldn't be surprised... And Cologne's voice did sound older and less cutesy, if that was Cologne earlier

Where WAS Cologne then...also how did Cure Moonlight know Shypre and Coffret

=~O

NO NO DON'T TELL ME HE--???

D~= D~= D~= D~= D~= D~= D~=

*sobs*

*sobs rainbows when Erika hugs Yuri and they all tell her they heard about Cologne and all* ToT ToT ToT ToT ToT ToT <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

"We want to bring back your Heart Flower! One more time!" "We want to be the source of your power!" *crying rainbows all over the place*

Ooh, they designed clothes for Yuri? Let's see 'em! Ooooh! :-D

Oh hey Coppe-sama

GLOWY HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They all drop down and Potpourri's the only one who doesn't know when to stop and just hits the ground XD

What happened?

Oh hey there's Dark Precure

IT'S GLOWINGGGG

*sings like Gumball and Darwin* Do do do do do! Commercial break! 

Among the cacti

Cologne!!!

So they call the container of Heart Seeds the Heart Pot. For some reason I can't help but think of... Chamber pots

"Tell Cologne your feelings"? 

That sound... 

Aaaand yyep it's Dark Precure

It stopped glowing?

Transformation time!

"Where is Tsukkikage Yuri?" Ho ho ho, wouldn't YOU like to know

"Too bad! She's not here anymore!"

Cologne! :-D 

He's a ghost

"Thanks to Cure Blossom and Cure Marine gathering the Heart Seeds, I can stay like this"

It wasn't your fault, Yuri ;^; </3 <3 <3

"You've been working too hard by yourself"

OHHHHHHH ='-O So there was a point when Cure Moonlight WAS offered the option of having teammates but she didn't think she needed them... And she was so, so wrong

ToT ToT ToT ToT ToT <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 </3 <3 <3

"You didn't want to hurt anyone. You only wanted to take the pain yourself." 

=~O =~O =~O !!! ToT ToT ToT ToT </3 <3 </3 <3 </3 <3

"Accept yourself, Moonlight. Accept your kindness and our sympathies towards your partners." *sobbing rainbows all over the place*

So she CAN be a precure again now?? ='~D ='~D ='~D Do iiiiiiiiit

OH FRICK 

Totally forgot in the midst of that feelsfest

YEEESSS GO GIRLS DO IT FOR YURI

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS I LOVE THE SHINING POWER FORTISSIMO

VDSHFVGSYFBEVWIUJERHGOIERJGEIGHJIOGHJRIOGEHRNIERHGJLKSHNIKG

D~= !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do it Yuri!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) 

(*O*)(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*)(*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) (*O*) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TRANSFORMATION TIME TRANSFORMATION TIME

HEART SEED RESTORED!!!!!!!!!!!

YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THIS TRANSFORMATION SCENE IS EPIC!!!!

THEY'RE GONNA END IT LIKE THAT???? 

next episode NOW

EPISODE 34

And we start by replaying that awesomeness!!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I just held down the E key for almost the whole henshin

Skip the theme song

Guess we're getting to THAT part of the series now

The expression on Dark Precure's face as it cuts back and forth between closeups like that is PRICELESS

This extended flashback of THAT day is just...wow

Seriously though in present day I absolutely LOVE seeing Dark Precure be this SHOOK XD You didn't think you actually just killed her now did you

YEEEEEEEESSSSS GO GO GO GO GO

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

WOOWOOWOOWOOYEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Oh hey these three are here now

WOOHOOOOOOOO 

Cure Moonglight effortlessly slapping his cards away with one hand like that YES

HOLY FRICK HOLY FRICK

This entire fight so far has been HDSOUNOIUJRGPIBOUBFNJKLNGRIGBNRWOUGBWRGOUHRWNFGJKSNGJKSNGHIOERJLWHSFOJNSAKLFNWSJKLGNSJKLFSHGJRWLOBHRWIOGNRWJKLGDNSJKNGIOWRBGNRWIOGBNRWIORNBSGIORWBIWRKGBNRWILRWNGIKWNGIOHNRW and it looks like it's only getting started

"The Dark Bracelet isn't just for powering up Desertrians. They also give us power!" Yyyeah, I guessed that after seeing Cobraja use it like that without having a Desertrian in this fight

Sasorina used mega-braid of power! Kumojacky used insta-sword! WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 

I love the clashing good guy bad guy power explosions!!!

"A beautiful one like you, Sunshine, is most fit to be my partner." *le disgust*

CRITICAL HIT

D~= !!!!!!!

MORE critical hits!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SILVER FORTE WAVE VS DARK FORTE WAVE YES YES YES YES

"Dark Precure! Why do you hate me so?!" I was kinda wondering about that too. She does seem to have some serious vendetta against Cure Moonlight specifically.

"You are...You are me, that's why!" ...What????????????????????

"As long as you remain the moon's light, I remain the moon's darkness!" "When darkness swallows the light, the moon becomes one!" That answers and raises questions at the same time

You've got this, Moonlight! Get up!

Ooooh, is that gonna be a catchphrase??

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GO GO GO GO GO YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO THIS IS TOTALLY EPIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

*sings like Gumabll and Darwin sped up* Dododododo!Commercialbreak!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

what? What's THIS?...Dark Precure? There was this purpley glow going up around her and then she fell over and fizzled lightning? ...Is that just what it's like when she's beaten?

Oh hey Sabaaku

"You're Dark Precure's..." Dark Precure's what? Dad? Creator? Pet mongoose?

Cure Blossom!!

*shakes head in disapproval at Sasorina* I was so enjoying the possibility of a heel-face-turn imminent for you. But, welp...

WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOWOOWOOWOO 

HA HAAAA YYYES XD 

Kumojacky's attack exploding in his face so he flies into the water fountain 

XD WOOP

GO CURE MOONLIGHT GO YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

XD And now the other cures finish it off!

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It's official...  ...the gang's all here. 

WOOP

The sun rises and all the water is gold now...

This isn't a school day, right? 'Cause y'all got no sleep all night...

Her heart flower's already reviving! 

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 (-: (-: (-:

What just happened? He's still there, right? Just can't be seen now...

"You are a true crybaby, you know?" XD

the others crying too <3 :'-)

Yep. That was definitely a lot

I'm...gonna guess there's a yes coming for Yuri being their fashion model

Yep!

"Who do you think I am! I can tell her measurements without even taking them!" Wait, really? 

XD Erika scuttling around like a crab

While Yuri stands there with a poker face

SHE DID IT?

XD 

End theme! 

[caveartfair]

How the Midwest Made Artists Out of Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw

Mike Kelley and Destroy All Monsters Collective (Jim Shaw, Cary Loren), Greetings from Detroit, from Strange Früt: Rock Apocrypha, 2001. Photo by Fredrik Nilsen. Courtesy of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.

Jim Shaw and the late Mike Kelley have fully cemented their reputations as the quintessential Los Angeles artists of the postmodern era. Kelley left his mark with stuffed-animal assemblages, perverse but literate performances, and bling-encrusted “Memory Ware,” while Shaw continues to astound with dream-sourced drawings, paintings and sculptures, as well as an entire invented religion (dubbed Oism), and increasingly complex allegorical installations.

Right now, you can see their work just about everywhere, on both coasts—Kelley’s “Kandor” series at Hauser & Wirth in L.A.; Shaw at the Marciano Art Foundation’s revamped Wilshire Boulevard Masonic Temple and at Metro Pictures, where the allegories include a series of black-and-white renderings of a hurricane composed from grotesquely distorted faces of our current President.

But the most historically significant gathering of works by these two this season is neither east nor west, but smack dab in the middle. “Michigan Stories: Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw,” on view through Feb. 25th at the MSU Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing. While East Lansing—90 miles northwest of Detroit—is not on many art tourist top 10 destination lists, maybe it should be. With a $28 million endowment from MSU alum Eli Broad, a Cubist architectural showpiece by Zaha Hadid, internationally renowned curator Marc-Olivier Wahler as director, and a 3½-star Marriott hotel a mile from campus, you’d be crazy not to check it out!

Installation view of Michigan Stories: Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw. Photo by Eat Pomegranate Photography. Courtesy of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.

“Michigan Stories” explores the formative Midwestern years before the duo migrated west. Kelley’s working-class Catholic upbringing in the Detroit suburb of Westland provided fodder for much of his later work, including the posthumously realized Mobile Homestead, a replica of his childhood home, now permanently installed as a public cultural center in downtown Detroit. Shaw grew up with three older sisters in the more northerly Dow Chemical factory town of Midland.

After the social disintegration following the 1967 Detroit riots, Michigan’s underground culture experienced a foreshadowing of the gritty and desperate urban energy that would soon emerge as punk, complete with a voracious appetite for lower-class vernacular visual culture. But it wasn’t enough: “Leaving Michigan was something you just did,” recalls Shaw when I spoke to him recently. “Why would you stay? There were no jobs, there was no art world.”

Prior to that momentous journey, though, Shaw and Kelley—along with filmmaker Cary Loren and singer/artist Lynn Rovner (a.k.a. Niagara)— formed the proto-punk experimental noise band Destroy All Monsters (DAM), which recorded hours of effects-laden bleats, squawks, and tape loops and published a series of art-damaged zines. At the same time, the DAM collective—most of whom were attending art school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor—were producing comparatively traditional paintings, drawings, collages, and sculptures.

“Mike disowned a lot of his early work,” Shaw remembers. “But I’m sure some will come out of the woodwork, because he left a lot of it in the back yard. We just left shit in our Ann Arbor house when we moved to Los Angeles. All these oil paintings and ceramics. Mike only took works on paper. Literally, the back yard was knee deep in stuff.”

Mike Kelley, Untitled (Collage 1947-2011), 1947-2011.  Photo by Fredrik Nilsen. Courtesy of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.

Among the portable works that were preserved are Kelley’s remarkable “allegorical drawings”—a sort of one-man exquisite corpse experiment that pays homage to Chicago art collective The Hairy Who, underground comix, and MAD artist Basil Wolverton.

A lot of this protean work would remain important to the artists. Decades later, in the 21st century, both Shaw and Kelley would revisit the archive of their surviving undergraduate oeuvres—adding onto or reconfiguring student paintings with the same anthropological perversity they would later apply to deconstructed felt church banners or Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine imagery.

While “Michigan Stories” gathers as many of these archival treasures as it can, the most substantial components date from after the Midwestern exodus, and reflect both artists’ penchant for mythologizing their autobiographical roots. Chief among these fictionalized reminiscences are the selections from Shaw’s “My Mirage” project—an epic avant-garde graphic narrative that follows an archetypal teenager named Billy and his coming of age in the 1960s and early-’70s Michigan counterculture. Comprised of over 150 unique interrelated artifacts—mostly 17-by-14 inch format drawings and paintings—“My Mirage” follows Billy from geekish adolescence through psychedelic hipsterism, then deep into the forgotten subculture of the Jesus Freaks.

“Part of the reason I did ‘My Mirage’,” Shaw remembers, “was to trace some of the beginnings of the Born Again movement—which hit certain aspects of my group pretty hard. It was such a weird vestige of the 1960s—so many people who had been hippies and felt lost became Born Agains.” Before getting washed in the blood of the lamb, though, Billy progresses through an encyclopedic array of pop-cultural and art-historical references, from the obscure (Jess Collins’s “Tricky Cad” collages) to the iconic (Dr. Seuss, Salvador Dalí).

Jim Shaw, Teenagers Talking, 1987. Courtesy of the artist.

Installation view of Michigan Stories: Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw. Photo by Eat Pomegranate Photography. Courtesy of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.

This magpie curatorial impulse is a major factor in both Shaw’s and Kelley’s aesthetics. Shaw’s phenomenal archive of unhinged religious posters, conspiracy theory newsletters, and UFO cult recruitment material was the basis for “The Hidden World”—restaged for “Michigan Stories” with expanded sections on legendary L.A. evangelist Miss Velma, the El Cajon-based Unarius Academy of Science (which channelled UFO testimonials from Leonardo da Vinci and other notables), schizophrenic/visionary alien abductee/archeologist Richard Shaver, and the work of Stanisław Szukalski—Polish-born modernist sculptor and inventor of the theory of Zermatism, which details mankind’s eternal struggle with the half-bred Yetis that secretly control the world. Kelley’s own pop-culture hoarding tendencies are represented by his rapid-fire, densely-packed Harem videos, which compile his personal collections of pin-ups, postcards, records, comic books, and more.

All of which points up a central paradox at the heart of “Michigan Stories”: Most of the cultural touchstones that inspired Kelley and Shaw weren’t specific to their geographical location; they were specific to the lower classes, mass media, and the counterculture.

What made Michigan different was that it was ahead of the curve in the slide from 1967’s flower power to 1977’s punk irony—not to mention post-apocalyptic decadence. This was the home of Iggy and the Stooges, after all. The same regional milieu that fostered the Stooges produced MC5 and John Sinclair’s White Panther Party, rock critic Lester Bangs, and some of the most interesting early punk bands, including Destroy All Monsters. This radical, music-centered subculture—rather than any incarnation of the art world—is what spurred Kelley’s and Shaw’s ambitions.

Jim Shaw, The Angel of the Chemical Plant, 2015. Photo by LeeAnn Nickel, Los Angeles. Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery, London / Hong Kong.

Jim Shaw, Untitled (Obliterated High School Self Portrait), 2004. Courtesy of the artist.

“Mike always had this urge to be a success,” Shaw tells me, “even when being a success wasn’t a cool thing to want. So it was sort of hidden, cloaked. But again, if you were in Ann Arbor there wasn’t a world to have a success in. Even in New York, the frickin’ art world was moribund in the ‘70s, just aging leftovers of the AbEx era—no wonder we didn’t see any place for ourselves in it. I didn’t care. I just thought ‘There’s gotta be something else to do—let’s start a band!’ ”

Glimmers of new possibilities lured Kelley and Shaw on the road west (in a Ford Pinto and an AMC Gremlin, respectively) in 1976. The rich potentials of their lack of good taste—coupled with the post-industrial ethos of their Midwestern homeland—came to be central to the reinvigoration of their own practices. In time, it would also help jumpstart a considerable chunk of the contemporary art world as well.

The complexity of this debt is probably best exemplified by a group of hagiographic “history painting” banners made by Destroy All Monsters circa 2000. These works half-ironically acknowledged the significance of local Detroit television personalities—Soupy Sales, Captain Jolly, Morgus the Magnificent, wrestler George “The Animal” Steele, and Milky the Clown— and working-class rockers like the Grand Funk Railroad, ? and the Mysterians, Mitch Ryder, and Ted Nugent, as well as bona fide freaks like Sun Ra, George Clinton, and Alice Cooper. All these notable creatives and more are clustered together across three enormous canvases like some MAD magazine parody of The School of Athens. But on the fourth and final canvas there’s only one group pictured—posed in front of Westland Shopping Center, outside Detroit—and of course it’s Destroy All Monsters. History is written by the winners. Or at least the ones that got away.

from Artsy News