Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Michael Jackson - Up the Wall

There is a recording studio in London called The Premises. Until a couple of weeks ago, it was best known for its commitment to renewable energy and the recordings that have been made there. Right now, though, it's best known as 'that place with the statue of Michael Jackson dangling the baby out of the hotel window', and the studio website has been deluged with messages from Jackson fans condemning both the statue and The Premises for displaying it. The artist has, according to one fan, racked up a hell of a lot of 'Karmic debt'. What's the karma exchange rate for dangling a child out of a window? Anyway, three questions spring to mind:

1) Is art that depicts distasteful events intrinsically distasteful?
2) If you have a problem with what the statue represents, don't you have a problem with Jackson himself and his baby-dangling antics?
3) Do you have to be stupid, mad and deluded to be a Michael Jackson fan, or is it optional?

We've been here before, of course.

6 comments:

Simon said...

My word, that's brilliant. And such wonderful comments too. Hats off to you Sir for bringing this to my attention.

office pest said...

Shamon!

Nick said...

It should so obviously be a statue of a baby dangling Michael Jackson out of the window that I'm ultimately against it, unless it's mechanically animated.

anonymous said...

But if it was Johnn's Lennon statue beating one of his girlfriend on that wall, you woul have a problem now, would you? I love the hypocricy and the double standards of the "sane" people versus the "delusional" MJ fans. There are plenty of celebrities who have made mistakes in their life and some worse than Jackson. Why not use them for creating a statue.Why using Michael Jackson? Simple question to the question tha you made.

Nick said...

I have no problem with a statue of John Lennon throwing, say, May Pang out of a window, and in fact I may use my enormous wealth to commission just such a piece.

Louis Barfe said...

Agreed that plenty of celebrities have made mistakes, the rat. How many have an army of fans who can post-rationalise any amount of fucked-up shit, though? I maintain that even if Jacko had dropped that baby from the Berlin hotel balcony to its death, his fans would find a way of explaining it away and defending him.