Michael Jackson. Artes visuales y símbolos (Michael Jackson. Visual art and icons)

Michael Jackson’s (1958-2009) visual mastery is a fundamental pillar in his career and has had a huge impact on a wide range of visual artists from the 1980s to the present day, to the extent that he has become a reference for many, who have not hesitated to work with his iconic figure: Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Rufino Tamayo, Yasumasa Morimura, Marc Quinn, Paul McCarthy, David LaChapelle, Glenn Ligon, Gary Hume, Kehinde Wiley, Zou Cao and Yang Mian, among many others. The boundaries between artistic disciplines are so blurred today that, in my opinion, for example, there is not much difference between the analysis of a video installation by Bill Viola or a clip by the King of Pop (like the excellent Scream). In short, this writing shows how visual languages feed off each other, linking Michael Jackson with a medieval altarpiece, with a portrait of Louis XIV, with a painting by René Magritte, with sculptures by Koons, McCarthy, and Quinn, with a performance by Ai Weiwei, with a Japanese science fiction animé and with the C-3PO android among other images, all of which testify to Marcel Duchamp’s statement: “Art is a game between all men of all times.”