This one’s for you, MJ

Artist Chirag Patel has every single album of Michael Jackson that has ever been released. In fact, he also has a rare solo record of Michael Jackson singing 'We Are The World'. He owns 700 to 800 posters of the late King of Pop. It’s safe to say that this Baroda born and bred artist is a die hard fan of Michael Jackson.

Interestingly, Chirag has dedicated an entire art exhibition titled 'This Is Not It' to the late King of Pop. “I have grown up listening to MJ’s song and have not missed a single issue of Sun — the magazine that would give out pieces of a poster of MJ in different editions and when you put them together, they would make a huge poster of the star,” says Chirag. He continues, “During my school days, my father used to give me Rs20 a day to travel to school. I used to walk, saving the money for an MJ poster instead.”

This love and admiration for MJ is seen in Chirag’s works. “A group of school kids came to visit me in my studio. I just happened to ask them, ‘Do you know who Michael Jackson is?’ In their answers they associated MJ with one of the many controversies that surrounded him. I was really hurt to know that today’s generation remembers him for all the wrong reasons and do not realise what a great artist he was. So about one-and-a-half years before his death I started working on an exhibition on him and planned to show it in London alongside his come-back show. Sadly, that never happened,” says Chirag whose series reflects the magnanimity of the late pop icon.

In his exhibition, Chirag has captured MJ’s moon walk, his iconic gloves and jacket and changes of his face structure  during the stages of his life. There is also a work in which the artist visualises MJ’s come-back show.