How Do You Solve a Problem Like Michael Jackson?

Last week, office had the enlightening privilege of chatting with MJ’s personal photographer, Todd Gray, who has an entire room of work in the show.

You were Michael Jackson’s personal photographer. What did that entail?

That's correct. I photographed him in ’76—maybe ’75. Up until Thriller, I worked for him. Back then, big celebrities—even Muhammad Ali—had their own photographer. But photography was more complex—it wasn’t like you had a disposable camera in your pocket. So, if you wanted anything recorded, and you wanted to have control of what was taken, then you’d have a personal photographer. Basically, he’d call me to come to his house and photograph him doing some leisure activity, or going to an award show, or benefit. One thing was going to Disneyland with him because he wanted shots of him going on the rollercoasters. And then, of course, touring and recording sessions. So, for the Thriller sessions, I was present for that.

What's your take on the show at the National Portrait Gallery?

Well I was there for the opening, and Mark Ronson was the DJ, which was pretty impressive. Hugo Boss underwrote the opening, so there were a lot of fashionistas and so forth—a lot of people skinnier than me. But to answer your question directly, the show was really balanced. There were some excellent critical works and conceptual pieces, like Lorraine O’Grady's piece, which compared Michael Jackson and Baudelaire. Of course, Andy Warhol, who was friends with Michael—he had a great room, and Kehinde Wiley had a massive portrait in the show. He actually took several pictures of my pieces and put them on his Instagram feed, which my son saw. Finally, I get respect from my son because he’s like, 'Dad! Kehinde Wiley knows your work! You really must be something!'

Above: 'Cape Coast and Nickel,' 2014, 'Bamboo Royals,' 2014, both by Todd Gray.

I was originally going to interview the curator and ask him this question, but I think it still aplies: what do you think Michael Jackson represents and why have so many artists used him as a subject?

Well that is more of a curatorial question.

Well, you can answer it—you knew the guy.

He had such a huge influence. I mean, a lot of the works in the show were not made specifically for it, and these are serious artists: Faith Ringgold, Andy Warhol, David LaChapelle, Catherine Opie. They were moved by him one way or another—emotionally, because the effect his music had on them, or from a critical perspective, because this man was such an individual, and he maintained his individuality up against a hellstorm of criticism. So many people, especially entertainers, would bend, and Michael never did. He was going to be him. So, I just see him as a signifier of a person who did not bend to any kind of normativity. And he brought joy, man—he just brought a lot of joy into people’s lives.

But to me, it was his work ethic. I would see him doing scales in his hotel room before shows, turning off the air conditioning in the South during 95-degree weather, opening up the window to let in the humid air, because it was much better for his throat than the dry air from the AC. His brothers weren’t doing that—they were going off, doing stuff, while he was in his room, doing scales and practicing. I honestly don’t think I'd be as successful as I am had I not witnessed his work ethic. It really influenced me to buckle down and take my art seriously, like I saw him do.

That’s so interesting, especially because you don't really think about that when you think of Michael Jackson. Like, it's weird to picture him in his hotel room, doing scales.

He had an immense amount of talent, but that talent was nurtured and cultivated to a very high degree—to an obsessive degree—because he wanted to be the best in the world, period. He took that as his mission, so he took all the pains and sacrifices that came with that. I have photos of him—here he is, Off the Wall is huge, and we’re on the road, and I have this photo of him, right before he went on stage where he’s biting his lip. You can just see the fear in his eyes. Sometimes, he was almost ready to vomit. I mean, here's this person who'd been doing this since he was 6-years-old, yet in his 20s he's still experiencing this anxiety. But as soon as he'd step on stage—boom—he'd become this huge superhero. He'd become MJ. And as soon as he was off that stage again, he was meek and mild Michael. His brothers—they were always just ready to go on stage. But for every performance, the stakes were high for Michaell, and it took a huge toll.

As soon as he'd step on stage—boom—he'd become this huge superhero.

That’s actually something I was feeling from the show—that it taps into this idea of sort of splitting of identities. Like, there’s the icon, and there’s the man himself, and how those ideas become absorbed into our own perceptions of him.

Oh, totally. I’m going to even take it one step further, because I’ve thought about this quite a bit. At rock events, where a whole bunch of people come together and put their attention on a person or a group on the stage, is very similar to ancient cultures and the shaman. The shaman would go into a trance and the whole village would circle around and look at him, or at the campfire, when the most profound storyteller tells a story. Since the '60s, when we really dislocated more, and people really stopped believing in any god—what's that word?

Agnostic. That's when you acknowledge there’s a God, but you aren’t dogmatic.

Correct, agnostic. I see these gatherings as a way to tap into something ancient, because there’s thousands of us and we experience this ecstaty together. Then we rely on Mick Jagger to release that feeling inside of us—it's like a church revival, where you look at the priest up on the pulpit, and you touch the ecstaty. Just look at The Doors and Morrison—you think it’s him, but it’s really inside of you. You're just giving that performer the agency to release what's in yourself. So, for me, when I see those crowds of people, when I see Michael, he becomes that shaman—he takes on the weight of being the changeling, the shapeshifter, that iconic thing, or that force that allows people to experience extreme happiness. I mean, it’s crazy.

I often think that art taps into religion and belief, especially because most art from history is religious. But then, when you think about today, what do we have? We don’t have saints—we have celebrities.

Exactly. So you have these gatherings where there are thousands of people there for one single purpose—for the rock show. I’m sure you’ve seen the DVDs of his performances in Bucharest, and Eastern Europe, and all those places, but the camera goes to the audience and girls are just crying and fainting, like Beatlemania. I mean, that’s religion. And you know, if it were The Stones, you'd know half the audience was fucked up on drugs. But at a Jackson concert, things were pretty innocent. That's just what he causes in people. It reminds me of those ancient religious pagan festivals. He is Dionysus.

Above: 'Exquisite Terribleness in the Mangrove,' 2014, 'Atlanta by Boat,' 2015, both by Todd Gray.

Let's talk a bit about the work in the show. Can you describe it to me?

They’re framed photographs of Africa, and photos of Michael, and they’re stacked on top of each other. I did my graduate thesis at CalArts by critiquing and re-examining all of my MJ stuff that I’d taken ten years before as a part of pop culture. Now, ten years later, I’m analyzing it and recontextualizing it as contemporary art. I’m also referencing the African diaspora, so I’m really questioning Michael’s place globally. So, I’m not positioning him as an African-American—I’m positioning him as an African in America. I have a studio in Ghana, so for the last ten years, I’d take MJ’s pictures around and ask people in the bush if they knew who he was, and photograp their responses, and record it.

Did they know who he was?

This was before smartphones, and I was in a place with no paved roads, no utilities—it’s just living like people used to live, and everyone 8-years-old and up knew who he was. I was actually kind of shocked. I mean, everybody. He's the most famous black man in the world—if not just the most famous man in the world, period.

You mentioned connecting Michael to the disapora. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. I’m sure you remember this, but in the early '90s, after Bad, and his complexion started changing, in the black community, the narrative was that Michael was distancing himself from his blackness—that he was embracing whiteness, as evidenced by these modifications to his face and hair. I was of that notion also, and during my graduate years, I was doing this photo text piece where I was showing all these examples of Michael—the term is called ‘mental colonialism,’ and it's the idea is that the colonizers, they ban your language, they tell you your culture is worthless, and basically stir up racial self-hatred, and a desire to be white. Like, first they colonize your body, then they colonize your mind. So, in my master's thesis, I was saying that Michael is evidence of mental colonialism. The idea was actually first discovered by Jean-Paul Sartre, who was a contemporary of Joseph Campbell. After reading him and coming across this concept, I’m writing this thesis and thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s not just Michael, it’s me too,’ because I realized elements in my own personality—how I would change my pattern of speech so you couldn’t tell I was black, how on my resume I would black out that I had exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Back in the '90s, believe me, it would be restricted if there were any signifiers of your blackness on your CV or resume. So, once I saw those things I thought, ‘Oh my God, I was distancing myself from my own culture,' and 'I was harboring racial self-hatred.' That’s when I realized, Michael Jackson isn’t an eccentric—he’s a product of white supremacist thinking and American systemic racism. That’s when my whole thought, and my whole relationship with Michael changed, and when I decided to use his photographs to criticize whiteness, to criticize systemic racism.

That’s when I realized, Michael Jackson isn’t an eccentric—he’s a product of white supremacist thinking and American systemic racism.

He’s such a—I don’t want to say obvious—but the connection is really a cool idea.

I just want people to consider it. That’s all I want people to do—just pause and consider it. I don’t want people to keep thinking that he’s crazy, he’s an eccentric genius—yes, he is an eccentric genius, but he’s also a victim of systemic racism, and it got in his head as it does to most people, and any Other—queer Other, woman Other. Any non-white patriarch. And contextualizing Michael, like this exhibition does, really speaks to how important he is outside of just music culture. I mean, he’s very significant. I can’t give it enough weight. Look how many serious artists have actually used his work in a variety of contexts to reflect back on our culture.

'An Illuminating Path,' David LaChapelle.

'Nimes Road Bedside Table,' Catherine Opie.

'Thriller Black and White,' Graham Dolphin.

'Equestrian Portrait of King Philip II,' Kehinde Wiley.

Michael Jackson portrait for Interview Magazine, KAWS

'Michael Jackson: On the Wall' will be on view through October 21, 2018, at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Cover image: 'Hands,' 2016, Todd Gray; All images courtesy of Todd Gray and the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.

By Enzo Holdt
Artworks by Pamela Sneed

Art

Tiebreaker - Alvin Armstrong

November 15, 2024

There is a moment of silence right before the play. Just before the racket strikes the ball as it hangs weightless in the air, breathless and charged. It’s the fleeting yet decisive instant that can alter the course of the match, determining who wins and who loses.

Alvin Armstrong depicts this crucial moment in his new exhibition Tiebreaker, symbolizing the risks and rewards of competition. It’s an implication of something else at stake, where athletes push not only their bodies, but their spirits to the absolute limit.

The dynamic figures embody the strength, grace, and agility juxtaposed by the vibrant color palette evoking not just the joy of competition but the charged energy of the court.

Tiebreaker is opening Thursday, November 16th at Anna Zorina Gallery.

By Rea Brayshaw
Artworks by Alvin Armstrong

Art

The Things People Are Ashamed To Take Photos Of: The Photography and Films of Yuhan Cheng

Yuhan’s latest exhibition of photo and video work titled 窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里 takes its namesake from what could’ve been a mundane encounter. A month after moving to New York City from Chengdu, China, they stumbled across an abandoned fish tank left curbside. It reminded them of “the rotating fish in a tank that faded into the background of their mother’s home in Chengdu”, a thread connecting childhood familiarity that transformed into a symbol of greater significance in adulthood. A tank is a world within a world; a microcosm secluded from the broader chaos of the outside. Since then Yuhan has captured the other kinds of “fish tanks” closest to them in their photography and short films. Not literal ones necessarily– but intimate confined spaces in Chengdu and NYC where time stands still.

In the midst of taking snapshots of loved ones, Yuhan decided to turn their tender but examining lens on themselves. They realized shooting self-portraits unraveled a deeper understanding of their own nonbinary gender and queer sexuality. Yuhan admits in one of their short films “I hide from looking at my own body.” Yet, in the seclusion of their room which doubles as a dark room, Yuhan began to develop their first nude photos chronicling the subtle wounds; bitten cuticles, bruises, and scrapes they’ve accumulated involuntarily, once again documenting the things people choose to hide.

窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里, debuted at FAR-NEAR Studio Hours a gallery in Chinatown focused on expanding the art world's view of Asia and Asian artists curated by Lulu Yao Gioiello. The event merged Yuhan’s works from the past three years, including 70 photographs, three short documentaries, and one installation. There was something uncanny about the gallery’s atmosphere – from the dollar store teal green curtains obscuring every window to the clusters of framed photos mimicking how photos of relatives are displayed in one’s childhood home, to the darkened lighting that was both disorienting and cozy. All these details were meticulously chosen to imitate the rooms depicted in Yuhan’s films and photography. In other words, the audience was invited to Yuhan’s “fishtank”, to share the odd balance of comfort and unease of being known intimately. We talked to Yuhan at Cafe Reggio to understand how their latest body of work came into being.

Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity.

Ora Margolis— Were any memories/childhood experiences you had in Chengdu important to how you've developed as an artist?

Yuhan Cheng— Growing up in Chengdu, especially in a military household, shaped and gave me a source of contention how I understood my identity. There was always a sense of conflict when it came to my body and feeling like I didn’t quite fit the expectations around me. This tension has been a driving force in my practice, pushing me to explore identity and belonging in my work.

Tell us a bit about your latest exhibition Outside the Window, Inside the Tank at Far. What headspace were you in when taking these photos?

YC— Outside the Window, Inside the Tank is about the fluidity of self; our bodies, our environments, and our identities. The idea of water as both a symbol of confinement and freedom is central to the photos and film that comprise the exhibit. This fluidity much like how I see my experience moving between Chengdu and New York, where similar feelings follow me no matter where I am. Water mirrors the body, the frame, and the room, which are all containers of the self.

Previously, you’ve said you wanted the exhibition space to look "like your room". How did you make that happen and why is your NYC room important to you?

YC— My room in NYC is an extension of my identity. It’s where I feel vulnerable and where I explore myself most openly. It’s a manifestation of my sense of self. I recreated certain elements in the exhibition—the green sheer curtains, the dollar store shower curtain with bubbles, and the center installation depicted a self-portrait deteriorating in water, reminiscent of a fish in a tank. This room, like any other room or container, magnifies the tension of self-exploration.

Has your idea or comfort with your gender identity and /sexuality changed since you’ve delved into photography?

YC— Yes. The process of photography and filming has been a mirror to my own understanding of self. Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity. The process of photographing my queer friends and then myself allowed me to come to terms with who I am.

How did you and Lulu Yao of FAR-NEAR Studio meet, and what makes her a good collaborator?

YC— We first connected when I reached out with my series Princess of Funan River. Lulu understood the struggles and complexities in the work and she invited me to expand on those ideas with her. Our collaboration has worked because Lulu truly resonates with the themes I’m drawn to, like fluidity, transformation, and the intimacy of navigating belonging.

After completing Fish Tank and Remnants of an Amateur Film, what kind of movie do you want to make next?

YC— Right now, I’m more focused on writing. I need to understand what I want to say before making another film. Writing helps me find clarity;it’s a crucial part of my process.

What kind of camera do you use and why?

YC— I use a Canon AE-1. I started with it and I still love it. It's small, spontaneous, easy to use, and light. It allows me to capture moments naturally without overthinking.

What's your biggest fear?

YC— Being disconnected from my sense of self, from others, and from the things I love.

When do you feel most like yourself?

YC— It’s during those fleeting moments when I complete a project. That feeling fades quickly, leaving me searching for the next project to reconnect with that sense of fulfillment.

How do you want people to feel when they interact with your art?

YC— I want them to feel whatever resonates with them. I don’t want to prescribe the experience; it should feel right for each person.

Your work focuses on the close knit communities that surround you or various metaphorical “fish tanks”. What communities do you feel closest to?
YC— The queer artist community, both in Chengdu and NYC, has been a source of comfort and understanding for me. There’s something about shared struggles and shared creative language that feels like home.

What's the biggest difference between living life as a queer artist in NYC and in Chengdu?

YC— In both NYC and Chengdu, I’m learning more about myself. NYC offers a sense of freedom, while Chengdu is home, a place of comfort and history. Neither place defines me but both are significant parts of my path.

What are your next moves/goals?

YC— I want to continue exploring both film and photography, expanding my narrative style and experimenting across mediums. During my show, I found new ways of seeing my photographs such as by adding a window screen between frames or letting a self-portrait fade and grow mold in water. These approaches allowed me to see my work not just as 2D images but as 3D objects.

I want to keep pushing the boundaries of how photo and film can interact, and I’m also interested in trying photojournalism. My focus remains on collaborating across mediums and continuing to accumulate experiences that I can translate into sincere honest work.