This Article By Tom Cardy
This year marks 33 years since Michael Jackson’s album Thriller was released and went on to be one of the biggest-selling albums in history.
Such is the popularity of the album and Jackson, it has even permeated the art world. At Wellington’s City Gallery you can view the multi-screen King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson) by South African artist Candice Breitz.
In the work 16 Jackson fans perform the album in its entirety, from Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ to The Lady in My Life and everything in between, includingBeat It, Billie Jean and the title track. At no point are there any images of Jackson himself.
Breitz, who over the past decade has become one of South Africa’s top artists, says her interest in Thrillerstarted when the album was released. She was 10 years old at the time. “I was fascinated by the frenzy around the Thriller album . . . Even back then, the album was of particular interest to me because of the response that it produced, the millions of listeners that it reached, the cult audience that it generated, the way in which it made it possible to observe and track the dynamics of a star and his fans in very stark terms.”
King, created in 2005, is actually part of a series of works of big name music stars made around that time. The first was Legend (A Portrait of Bob Marley), which Breitz shot in Jamaica. “It was the one that percolated in my mind for the longest period of time. Being the first work in what I knew I wanted to turn into a series, Legend prompted me to reflect very specifically on what I was aiming for both formally and in terms of the broader set of questions that I hoped the series would evoke.”
The second, Queen (A Portrait of Madonna) was shot in Milan “with the participation of 30 very devoted Madonna fans,” says Breitz.
King she sees as a companion piece to Queen. The final in the series was Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon).
“The iconic musicians that are ‘portrayed’ in my series of portraits are all figures who have produced very profound and/or spectacular responses to their music and personae.
“For me, the series of portraits is less about any of these figures than it is about the way in which they prompt projection and invite identification. It is this space of reception that really interests me, as embodied in the figure of the fan, the moment in which we receive and process iconic albums likeThriller. This is why the stars themselves never appear either visually or vocally in the series of works. Rather, they are represented via communities of their fans.”
But how did Breitz find her 16 Jackson fans? “I advertised in newspapers, online forums and fanzines,” she says.
“Once fans responded, the first step was to explain to them exactly what I was doing, in other words that I was seeking performers to participate in a work of art, rather than being somebody who could advance a musical career or career in showbiz.
“Some respondents dropped out at that stage. Those who did not were sent a long questionnaire made up of questions about why they were interested in Michael Jackson and his music. The final participants were those who, upon reading their answers to these questions, seemed most invested in Michael Jackson as an icon and as a musician. They were selected on this basis, rather than on the basis of their appearance or musical ability.”
King is the oldest of three video installations on show at the gallery. Factum from 2010 is edited interviews of identical twins and triplets, which plays on their similarities and differences in what they say and how they say it. The work’s title refers to two Robert Rauschenberg paintings from 1959 which on first viewing appear identical.
Source: Istuff / Tom Cardy
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