Michael Jackson’s Radical Aesthetic by Stillwater, Willa;

Short description:

This two-volume work encourages students, fans, and scholars to take an expansive view of Michael Jackson’s art. 

Long description:

This two-volume work encourages students, fans, and scholars to take an expansive view of Michael Jackson’s art. Focusing on his films, which it approaches as exquisite works of art as well as a theoretical framework for interpreting his other work, it demonstrates the depth and scope of his art and its far-reaching cultural significance. Specifically, it demonstrates how Jackson engaged in a sophisticated process of telling, untelling, and retelling entrenched cultural narratives that perpetuate prejudice, and how he modified affective responses to racial signifiers and other marks of difference. In this way, Jackson confronted prejudice more profoundly than any other American artist in recent memory.

This work also takes a detailed look at the allegations of child sexual abuse. These were so shattering for Jackson both personally and creatively that his life and career divide into two parts – a division reflected in the two-volume structure of this work. Volume One focuses on Jackson’s early films followed by analysis of the allegations, including historical factors that may have influenced how the police, press, and public reacted. Volume Two then focuses on the art Jackson created in response, including some of the most poignant, political, and significant work of his career.

Volume Two also looks at evolving perceptions of Jackson’s face and persona, approaching them as revolutionary yet deeply troubling works of art – works that became even more unsettling as Jackson wrestled with the intense emotions unleashed by the abuse allegations. It posits that popular perceptions of Jackson’s face and persona were illusions that performed critically important cultural functions, and that Jackson himself – the man behind the illusion – was a trickster artist. It concludes that Jackson was the most important American artist of our time, and that his face was his masterpiece. However, it only arrives at these conclusions after careful analysis of his films. It’s through his films that Jackson articulates his aesthetic. Therefore, it’s his films that make his face legible.

This compendium of Michael Jackson’s visual art is remarkable and revealing. Through intense research and rich interpretation, Stillwater examines Jackson’s work, from his short films to his physical body, as both artistic expression and a means of challenging long-held cultural narratives. The overarching story Stillwater tells is one of history, race and power. It is a story that celebrates the scope of popular art and, more specifically, Black popular art as an agent of social change. This is an extraordinary project that befits an exceptional artist and a phenomenal body of work.

Harriet J. Manning, author of Michael Jackson and the Blackface Mask

Table of Contents:

PRELUDE: TELLING, UNTELLING, AND RETELLING

ACT ONE: THE EARLY FILMS

Chapter 1: Selected Films of the 1980s, Chapter 2: Moonwalker and Its Component Films, Chapter 3: Selected Dangerous Films

ACT TWO: A TIME OF CRISIS

Chapter 4: Historical Contexts, Chapter 5: The Allegations, Chapter 6: Additional Factors Influencing Perceptions

CODETTA