Bay Ridge artist turns Brooklyn history and family memory into immersive exhibit

Bay Ridge native Michael McLeer, better known as Mr. Kaves, has turned nearly five decades of collecting, creating and family history into Brooklyn Pop, an 11,000-square-foot immersive exhibit at Industry City.

Kaves began writing graffiti in 1980, when he was 11 and painted his name on an MTA train car. He later expanded into painting, film, design and music, co-founding the hip-hop group Lordz of Brooklyn with his brother Adam.

Located at 254 36th Street, Brooklyn Pop is composed largely of pieces from Kaves’ collection.

“It’s 47 years of collecting, and it took me about five years to organize it … and then about a year to build it,” he said.

The exhibit winds through Brooklyn history and Kaves’ life, bringing together the culture that shaped him and the family he wanted to memorialize.

“I lost my mother and sister over 30 years ago, so it had a lot to do with that,” Kaves said. “How do I honor them in a way that no one has ever seen before?”

His mother, Donna Blanchard, 43, and four-year-old sister, Michele, were killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing Fort Hamilton Parkway at 92nd Street in Bay Ridge in 1994. The driver of the white box truck was never identified.

“When the accident happened, I went into some sort of creative coma,” Kaves said. “Now it’s 30 years later, and instead of becoming a victim of something, you [feel like] this has to have purpose. It’s turning something broken into something beautiful.”

Brooklyn Pop opened in September 2024 and generally takes 60 to 90 minutes to explore. Kaves modeled its winding layout on Coney Island’s old haunted house rides, where each turn carried riders into another room or revealed something unexpected.

Visitors enter to the sound of the 1955 World Series playing on an old radio beside a wall devoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

“Brooklyn is such a brand now,” Kaves said. “But for me it was important to tell why it became cool, and it starts with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson.”

Displays move from graffiti and framed news stories to vintage storefronts, a KISS section and a re-creation of Kaves’ childhood Bay Ridge bedroom. A wall chronicles Lordz of Brooklyn, which released four albums between 1995 and 2020 and collaborated with artists including Busta Rhymes, Everlast and Korn. Actual train tracks lead into a Coney Island passage, while other installations reference Brooklyn films, including Sal’s pizzeria from Do the Right Thing and a neon sign from Lenny’s Pizza, which appeared in Saturday Night Fever.

The exhibit becomes a stage once a month for A Brooklyn Dream, an immersive play written and directed by Kaves. His son Quinn McLeer plays a young Michael as audiences move through the sets and follow three generations of the family.

The latest performance took place June 13, and Kaves said the play will return in September. He also hopes to turn Brooklyn Pop and A Brooklyn Dream into a television series.

Kaves has also worked on a mural at 86th Street and Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, part of a series focused on supporting local businesses.

“There’s going to be a struggle,” Kaves said. “So let’s make it a beautiful one. That’s a Brooklyn thing, too. We take nothing and turn it into something, we have no choice.”