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Its effect on the pop scene is incomparable. The exhibition "Michael Jackson – On the Wall" at the National Portrait Gallery in London shows that the King of Pop has also inspired the visual arts.
David LaChapelle: "A luminous path", 1998. ( Image: David LaChapelle)
With Big David Bowie and Pink Floyd's shows have shown at the London Victoria & Albert Museum in recent years that pop stars are incorporating into so-called high institutions culture. Provided that his concepts are so diverse and his work as durable and memorable as in the case of Bowie and Pink Floyd. Beyond the individual, both shows offered fascinating insights into the aesthetics and thinking of the sixties and seventies in fashion.
"Michael Jackson – On the Wall" corresponds less to this scheme. In the exhibition assembled by Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, the King of Pop rarely appears directly. On the contrary, his presence shines prismatically in the works of 48 photographers, painters, designers and videographers.
A fictitious character
On August 29, 2009, Jackson, who died on June 25, 2009, shortly before the release of his return, would have been sixty years old. The fascination that emanates from his fictional character created by himself is still uninterrupted to this day. The exhibition does not only show works in which artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring or David LaChapelle have dealt with the effect of this pop star while Jackson was alive, but also works that have been created after his death.
The star of Michael Jackson can shine more than ever today. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that the allegations against his person and the controversies surrounding his life are forgotten in the shadow of his work, his albums and his videos. On the other hand, his self-portrait, whose sexual cues once tormented the tabloids, now resembles a pioneering feat in the discussion of the fluidity of the genre. After all, the stars of his caliber are missing more and more in the pop-firmament – personalities who seem as different as if they had escaped a UFO.
We now look at a man whose images seem to us at least as strange as portraits of Henry VIII or Louis XIV and, indeed, Kehinde Wiley, 40-year-old New York painter, looks again on the classical portrait. His "Portrait of King Philip II (Michael Jackson)" is the most spectacular exhibition. It's a parody of Rubens' painting of King Philip's Spain on horseback, with two cherubim – a white, a black – purring over his head.
Michael Jackson, royal with putti accompaniment, played by Kehinde Wiley in the parody of "Portrait of King Philip II (Michael Jackson)" . (Photo: Olbricht Collection / Courtesy of Stephen Friedman Gallery & Sean Kelly Gallery © Kehinde Wiley)
Dignitaries of All Kinds
The combination of iconic paintings and contemporary characters from the African-American pop scene is a specialty of Kehinde Wiley. The artist wants to question our perception of dignitaries of all kinds. But it bears witness to Jackson's personal image that he himself had commanded. However, Wiley was able to finish it posthumously.
Kehinde Wiley's work raises issues that affect large parts of the exhibition – especially this one: is not everything just kitschy? The problem goes back to Jackson himself. In his search for elements from which he has repeatedly redesigned himself as Peter Pan's fairytale character for many years, he has not only resorted to great like Michelangelo or Rubens. He has also used story books, biblical portraits, comic books, sci-fi movies, pennies and souvenirs of all kinds. Almost all works of art are now limited on the surface of the self-portrait. quote once. It's strange and somehow disappointing. Should not we expect artists to look for phenomena behind masking?
Various works transform Jackson, the gifted interpreter, into a figure of Jesus who transcends water and invests on the cross the suffering of all humanity on the shoulders. Even this quasi-metaphysical interpretation, favored by Jackson himself, is often misguided – for example, in the sweet aesthetic of a remembrance and a devotional shop by David LaChappelle. Other artists (Isa Genzken, Michael Gittes) are trying to capture the agility of the superstar. Even the eyes, which enlarge with age, are a recurring motif, as in the contributions of Andy Warhol or Gary Hume.
The Classic: "Michael Jackson" by Andy Warhol, 1984. (Image : National Portrait Gallery / Smithsonian Institution)
Bold Theses
After all, the exhibition offers some bold theses. For example, New Yorker Lorraine O. Grady hung pictures of Charles Baudelaire and Michael Jackson side by side, entitled "The First and the Last of the Modernists." And Todd Gray, body photographer of Jacksons from 1979 to 1983, juxtaposes Jackson's photos from the "Off the Wall" album and "Thriller" photographs from Ghana – with the intention of "planting Michael into the African diaspora and a conversation on To begin colonialism. "
The strident exposure leaves behind contradictory impressions .Ine inevitably, one wonders: what is good taste, and for what in he needs several works are at the border of the inedible.Finally, there remains the admiration for the king of pop, whose appearance evoked a rainbow so colorful of artistic ideas.
