An exhibition ofart inspired by Michael Jackson opened Tuesday in Helsinki with organizersinsisting it was not a "celebration" of the singer, still dogged byabuse allegations a decade after his death. "Michael Jackson: On theWall" brings together old and new works depicting the iconic pop star andhis impact on popular culture, by artists including Andy Warhol, Americanphotographer David LaChapelle and British potter Grayson Perry. The show of 90works first hung in London's National Portrait Gallery in 2018 to widespreadcritical acclaim. It then toured in Paris and Bonn before coming toHelsinki. The German and Finnish showscome after a new raft of allegations that Jackson groomed and sexually assaultedchildren, detailed in the 2018 documentary "FindingNeverland".
The exhibitionwill nevertheless run in the Finnish capital "as planned", organizerssaid, with a text at the entrance acknowledging that "currentconversations may have changed the way the exhibition is interpreted"."We can't shy away from these difficult subjects and we of course condemnall kinds of abuse," Arja Miller, chief curator at Espoo Museum of ModernArt, told AFP. "But we also want to provide a platform for open discussionand for artists' voices," she said. "This exhibition and theseartists are not celebrating Michael Jackson, but analyzing his meaning in ourculture," Miller added.
Sponsors scaredaway
Miller said someorganizations refused to sponsor the exhibition over concerns about thecontroversies surrounding the singer, despite not having seen the show."I'm convinced that if everyone would have seen the exhibition they'dgladly be our partner because the exhibition is so diverse," she told AFP.Many of the Jackson-inspired works veer between the gaudy and the grotesque,including an oversized golden statue of the megastar with his pet chimpanzee,Bubbles, by Paul McCarthy.
Elsewhere, alife-size portrait by Kehinde Wiley, commissioned by Jackson himself shortlybefore his death in 2009, features the star in jeweled armor on horsebacksurrounded by cherubs, after a portrait by Rubens of King Philip II of Spain.The Romanian artist Dan Mihaltianu's installation draws on the impact of Jackson'sseminal 1992 concert in post-Communist Bucharest, using newspaper photosalongside concert footage.
Mihaltianu saidthat interest in his piece, from 1994, has grown again every time MichaelJackson has hit the headlines over the years. "He will stay as an iconsomehow, you cannot just erase him," Mihaltianu told AFP. "I rememberalready when he died, people were kind of, 'OK, now he's got to rest in peace.'But 10 years later, it's a new story coming up." - AFP