Blame it on the boogie

The art world can’t get enough of Michael Jackson.
 
With his personal mythology, androgyny, fluid racial identity and iconography, the King of Pop’s lifelong quest for selfhood proved irresistible to contemporary artists.
 
As a new National Portrait Gallery exhibition brings together works from more than 40 artists, including Andy Warhol, Grayson Perry, Keith Haring, Kehinde Wiley and Catherine Opie, we pick five of the best.

Exquisite Terribleness in the Mangrove

American artist Todd Gray was Michael Jackson’s personal photographer back in the 1980s. This quiet piece incorporates photographs from that time, alongside images of African flora, housed in thrift-store frames found in predominately African-American areas. ‘It’s my way of placing Michael within the African diaspora,’ Gray says.

 Exquisite Terribleness in the Mangrove, The collection of Aryn Drake-Lee Williams & Jesse Williams. Image courtesy of Meliksetian | Briggs, Los Angeles © Todd Gray

Dinner Jacket

If we could take one thing home from On the Wall, it would be this ‘dinner jacket’, hung with knives, forks and spoons and designed by Jackson himself.
 
Michael Jackson’s ‘dinner jacket’ by Michael Lee Bush. Date unknown. Courtesy of John Branca. Image © Julien’s Auctions/Summer Evans

Fit for a King

The King of Pop commissioned this understated portrait from American artist Kehinde Wiley in the months before he died. It was finished posthumously. The artist, best known for painting Obama’s presidential portrait, described working with Jackson as ‘extraordinary’. ‘His knowledge of art and art history was much more in-depth than I had imagined. He was talking about the difference between early and late Rubens’ brushwork.’
 
Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II (Michael Jackson) by Kehinde Wiley, 2010. Olbricht Collection, Berlin. Photo by Jeurg Iseler. Courtesy of Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York © Kehinde Wiley

Mick & Keith

In the hands of Keith Haring, Jackson is a gorgon, his figure worried by the feet, fists and crucifixes that make up his hair. The cross on his brow feels like a warning. Unseen for 30 years, this painting is a rare example of a portrait by Haring, who was captivated by Michael Jackson after meeting him in the 1980s.
 
Untitled by Keith Haring, 1984. Private Collection © 2018 The Keith Haring Foundation

Bedside Table

Here we see Elizabeth Taylor’s bedside table. Among her nail files and servant bell is a picture of the stars together and the order of service from Jackson’s funeral, decorated with a hair clip. Catherine Opie’s photograph of this little shrine to friendship is breathtakingly intimate. 
 
700 Nimes Road, Bedside Table by Catherine Opie, 2010-11. Courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles © Catherine Opie

Michael Jackson: On the Wall is at the National Portrait Gallery, London, until 21 October 2018