The King of Pop and Art: Michael Jackson, the inspiration of contemporary creators

The musical legacy that Michael Jackson, the "King of the World", can not be handed in question pop ", left for posterity but, until now, nobody had explored the influence of this icon of the twentieth century in contemporary art.

L & # 39; "Michael Jackson: On the Wall" exhibition of the National Portrait Gallery in London, He entered for the first time the inspiration that he exercised on nearly fifty artists of our time.

There At two days, nine years after the disappearance of Jackson, who would have turned 60 on August 29, was a loss she shocked the world, but from which she escaped in this exhibition, which aims to celebrate the life of the artist from a new perspective.

"Invincible", "Captain" or "Historical" are just a few of are adjectives that can be read in the play "A Michael Jackson Alphabet" that opens the exhibition and in which the artist Donal Urquhart makes a tour of the attributes of the American through the letters of the 39; alphabet.

How could it be otherwise? "A" corresponds to "ABC" the greatest success of The Jackson 5, the band with which Michael made himself known with four of his brothers in the early seventies and who became one of the greatest phenomena of popular music

The song "Workin & # 39; Day and Night" (1979), from Jackson's third album, "Off the Wall" (title in which the name of the exhibition was inspired) puts the soundtrack to Susan Smith-Pinelo's "Sometimes" shows, in which the theme repeats itself in a loop accompanied by a video of the singer's chest.

However, the music will reverse to the National Portrait Gallery, which focuses on painting, collage, video and photography shaping the group, consisting of a dozen rooms, which runs through Jackson's life.

One of them is dedicated exclusively to his relationship with Andy Warhol, who portrayed him with his characteristic colors in 1984, already converted into a mbad idol after the success of his sixth album "Thriller "(1982), the best-selling album of all time, with more than 105 million copies.

The curator of the show and director of the gallery, Nicholas Cullinan, said that "Michael Jackson: On the Wall" adopts a "radically new approach to the cultural impact of a unique figure across the globe. Contemporary art. "

In Cullinan's words, all artists, "even if they come from different generations and parts of the world, share their fascination with Jackson's figure and what he invented." [19659003] A fascination that is made quite tangible in the works of the American photographer David LaChapelle, whose huge shot they show a Michael Jackson as an archangel who rises on a demon, like a martyr in the arms of Jesus Christ or walking with a virgin.

A veneration that escapes accusations of abuse that tarnish the career of the artist in his later years, an episode in which he goes on tiptoe in the show, which seeks to clutter the figure of the singer [19659003] "Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II (Michael Jackson)" (2010), by Kehinde Wiley, is a clear example of this, with a Michael Jackson imitating being a king on a horse, inspired by the painting "Felipe II on horseback "(1630), by Pedro Pablo Rubens and which was the last painting commissioned by himself.

Eleven of the works that can be seen in London until October 21 were made specifically for the exhibition by artists such as Njideka Akunyili, Dara Birnbaum, Michael Craig-Martin, Graham Dolphin or Yan Pei Ming.

"It is rare that there is something new to say about someone so famous, but that's the case," concluded the show's curator.

Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, at the age of 50, of a drug overdose while preparing a series of concerts in the British capital with which he planned his return on stage [19659003]