I've steered way clear of architect's Michael Jackson Monument Competition because--hello, in what universe does that decision actually require any explanation? Because.
Anyway, after seeing the winners, I just have to raise a single, ungloved--and as yet unmittened, hold that thought--hand in apology and salute. They're kind of hilariously fantastic. Kottke is all tight between the winner [a nice copyright play] and second place [the perpetual desert disco dance floor powered by a gold-plated windmill].
Me, I find the third place entry, by an architecture student named James at the University of Utah, to be borderline brilliant. Its title, "Share Your Bed," comes from testimony Jackson gave during his trial for child molestation: "Why can't you share your bed? The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone. It's very charming. It's very sweet. It's what the whole world should do."
The jurors liked the "almost cheeky minimalism" and transformation of "an ordinary domestic object," apparently forgetting that these are both now standard-issue for memorials [c.f Oklahoma City bombing=chairs, Pentagon = benches]. For his part, James cites the "dialectic manner Michael lived life by," where "Innocence clashes with social ideals." I'd rank not molesting children a bit higher than an "ideal," but he's right that the bed is a potent site and symbol of personal/political, private/public paradox.
Beginning in April and running through the end of 1969, Yoko Ono and John Lennon conducted bed-ins as peace protests in hotels around the world. First was their honeymoon bed in Amsterdam, where the press converged, expecting to see the couple have sex. Instead, they were talking about peace all day. In bed. "Give Peace A Chance" was recorded in bed at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal that June.
And of course, there's Felix Gonzalez-Torres' classic billboards showing a couple's--his and his partner Ross's--unmade bed, which were installed across New York City in 1991. Either way, not artists or works I'd have ever thought to associate with Michael Jackson.
Whoops, I almost forgot. Huge shoutouts to etoile's King of Pop In Orbit, the plan to launch Jackson's shiny, gold coffin into space, which I have to love for obvious shiny-objects-in-space reasons--and to CUP's The Michael Jackson Mitten Jamboree, for which the whole world knits themselves a pair of MJ mittens. Again, explanation is neither needed or possible.
