Wind (A)

Isa Genzken created a plastic, monolithic elegy for Michael Jackson in the wake of his sudden death in 2009. This sculpture is part of a series that often features images of the singer, whose fluid movements and status as an emblem of American culture interested the artist. Here Genzken combined self-described “cheap materials” and a photograph Annie Leibovitz took of Jackson in 1987, around the height of his superstar status and before child molestation charges against him became public in the 1990s. Genzken has said of Wind (A) that she “tried here to make work that looks like wind, and it is the most difficult thing to do.”