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Michael Jackson needs you!
Mickie Quick wants to fill this window space with an artwork featuring the King of Pop – and he needs Lismore’s help.
Irish-born artist Mickie Quick wants to bring Michael Jackson back to life. (Why? You’ll have to ask him.) And he needs the North Coast’s help.
As part of Lismore Regional Gallery’s latest exhibition – Ecologies – opening next Wednesday, July 8, Mickie is creating an artwork in the front window of the gallery. It’ll feature a 3D form of the King of Pop with lots of plant greenery around it.
“I’m calling on Lismore to help bring Michael Jackson back to life,” Mickie said. “It’ll be a sort of shrine to Michael and I want to feature Lismore’s bountiful lushness.”
The project – Bringing Michael Jackson Back to Life – is about sustainability. Jackson is the metaphor with his fantastic talents as well as his unnatural and unsustainable lifestyle.
“The project is both an honouring of Michael Jackson and a criticism,” the artist said. “People can have the debate about Michael Jackson’s legacy; about what is admirable and what is disappointing about his life.”
This project will continue to grow during the exhibition’s run. People are encouraged to bring cuttings, pot plants – whatever can grow in the enclosed environment of the Gallery window – to the gallery from today.
And there’ll be a card where viewers on the street can write down what the man with the white glove meant to them.
Obviously this is a project that was not planned in advance.
“I’m a jack of all trades,” Mickie said. “Whatever is the appropriate thing to do, I do.”
Mickie Quick belongs to the Network of UnCollectable Artists (NUCA) and was one of the Guerilla Gardeners on Channel 10’s Guerilla Gardeners.
“I do spontaneous free art in spaces where it’s needed.”
Mickie will also be collaborating with Italian artist Diego Bonetto on an artwork in the Norco Artspace (Union St, Lismore). Although Diego is in Italy, the pair collaborates online. The project is called What Have We Got Here and is (again) all about ecology. It’s a work with weeds.
“It’s like the war on drugs,” Mickie said. “Farmers are fighting weeds, but you can use weeds to repair the soil.”
Ecologies featuring the work of Mickie Quick, Fiona Hall, Lyndal Jones, Christine Willcocks, Diego Bonetto (and all you who provide the plants) opens next Wednesday, July 8. It runs till September 5.
For more info phone the gallery on 6622 2209.
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