[
EVG photo from July]
In case you haen't seen it, HBO's two-part documentary,
"Leaving Neverland," features two former child performers describing how Michael Jackson allegedly sexually abused them while they were children.
However, as
Rolling Stone reported yesterday, despite the horrific allegations, "Michael Jackson’s posthumous career is showing few signs of major distress" since the documentary debuted two weeks ago.
Time Out reached out to Eduardo Kobra, the prolific Brazilian artist, to see if he might have any thoughts about removing the two Michaels mural that
he created last July on 11th Street at First Avenue.
Here's Kobra's statement:
"I decided to keep the mural on, for a few reasons:
First, because the mural itself is not a simple tribute to MJ. My entire idea was to show the transformations he went through during his entire life: from black to white, kid to adult, from natural to unnatural. The whole project that I did in NYC last year was about peace, and in that mural in particular I was trying to describe that people sometimes have to go through so much to be able to reach their own peace of mind.. and even then, sometimes doesn’t matter what people do, they can never reach that peace.
In the second place, I believe MJ is part of American History, and also part of the world’s music history. You can catalog music Before and After MJ, so much was his influence. He still is the biggest pop star that has ever lived, and that we have ever seen, and I believe we are never going to see another pop star like him again.
Therefore, we can’t just erase him from history. These new allegations can be true or not. It is not up to me to judge if MJ is guilty or not — and now, since he is dead, he won’t be judged by justice anymore. So I really hope that mural can do it’s part and bring us to think about it all and how we, as persons and as a community, will deal with this new fact concerning MJ’s life.
Hopefully this discussion leads us all to the desire to be a better person everyday."
I haven't heard of any movements to have the mural removed... other than a few Facebook posts where people opined that it was time for this to go — especially given that it faces the Asher Levy School.
