Los Angeles–based artist, critic, and curator Mike Kelley’s varied output included ritualized performance pieces, films, installations, wall-size drawings, paintings, and collaborations with artists such as Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler, and bands Sonic Youth and Destroy All Monsters (1973-1985). Kelley's work challenged the legitimacy of "normative" values and authority systems, often employing the confrontational practices of punk music. He often sought to legitimize overlooked instances of vernacular art in America, as in his “Kandors” series, begun in 1999, in which he cast representations of the fictional city Kandor, taken from earlier Superman comics, in colored resins and set them in tinted glass bottles to resemble illuminated reliquaries.