Michael Jackson, one of the most successful recording artists of all time, also has the distinction of being the most depicted cultural figure of the last fifty years. He was an inspiration for an extraordinary array of leading artists including Isa Genzken, Grayson Perry, Andy Warhol and Kehnde Wiley. This book, which accompanies a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, examines why so many contemporary artists have been drawn to Jackson as a subject and their artistic responses to him as an enduring international icon.
Throughout his 40-year career, Michael Jackson intrigued and captivated public imagination through musical ingenuity, sexual and racial spectacle, savvy publicity stunts, odd behaviours, and a seemingly apolitical (yet always political) offering of popular art. A consistent player on the public stage from the age of eight, his consciousness was no doubt shaped by his countless public appearances, both designed and serendipitous. The artefacts he left behind - music, interviews, books written by and about him, and commercial products including dolls, buttons, posters, and photographs, videos, movies - will all become data in our cultural conversation about who Michael Jackson was, who he wanted to be, who we made him to be, and why. Michael Jackson: Grasping the Spectacle includes essays that aim to understand Jackson from multiple perspectives: critical cultural theory, musicology, art history, media studies, cultural anthropology, sociology, philosophy, religious studies, literary theory, gender studies, performance studies, disability studies, film studies, and African-American studies. Intended for classroom use as well as research and general interest, this book expands our understanding both of this fascinating figure himself and of gender, sexuality, celebrity, and popular culture.
Jackson's paintings synthesize connections shared by local residents of color around experiences of transportation, housing, agriculture and labor. -New York Times The first monograph on Tomashi Jackson (born 1980), The Land Claim illustrates the Cambridge- and New York-based artist's unique work and research methodology that focuses on the historic and contemporary lived experiences of Indigenous, Black and Latinx families on the East End of Long Island, and how the role of women, the meaning of labor and the sacredness of land link these communities. Jackson's intricately layered and boldly composed large-scale paintings are featured alongside transcribed interviews and archival images from her research about the histories of Indigenous, Black and Latinx communities on Long Island's East End. Jackson provokes an urgent discourse around historical narratives of labor, collective memory, educational access, transportation and land rights experienced by communities of color.
