A Portrait of Michael Jackson

From the New York Times:

In addition to the legacy that is Michael Jackson’s discography, the King of Pop also left behind a trove of collectibles — from his bedazzled gloves and rhinestone-covered military garb to the countless tacky tchotchkes that filled his Neverland compound. Though many of the clothes and objects have been sold at auction, the museum-worthy collection has been preserved by the Swiss-born photographer Henry Leutwyler in a new book, “Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson” (Steidl 2010; $45). Mr. Leutwyler photographed the items prior to Mr. Jackson’s death in 2009, forgoing visual trickery and relying instead on a plain black background. Many of the images point to the otherwordly realm the star inhabited; others, such as an ordinary tube sock studded with rhinestones, bring him heartbreakingly down to earth.

Henry Leutwyler was recently interviewed for Center Stage, the weekly radio show looking at film, music, books, politics and pop culture with Mark Gordon.

The Times Online feature Neverland Lost.

The Faded Glitter of Neverland
By Tim Teeman, May 29, 2010

Henry Leutwyler went to photograph one glove and instead came back with a haunting book about Michael Jackson

The idea, says Henry Leutwyler, was simply to photograph one of Michael Jackson’s glittering stage gloves. In April last year, before the singer’s death, a number of Jackson’s clothes and possessions were up for auction to raise money to clear his debts. For a magazine commission, Leutwyler went to the warehouse where they were being kept, but instead of photographing one glove, he came away with a far larger catch.

For the past few years the 48-year-old Swiss-born magazine photographer has been taking, by stealth, pictures of notorious objects, such as the gun that Mark Chapman used to kill John Lennon, and celebrities’ private possessions, including Elvis Presley’s wallet, containing a picture of the singer with his daughter, Lisa Marie, as a baby and his identity card. “I had come across the Lennon gun while working on a story about illegal gun trading, and there it was, in a New York police station, with the bullets used to kill him,” says Leutwyler. He shows me his photo of the gun used by Jack Ruby to kill Lee Harvey Oswald (accused of assassinating President Kennedy) and says that he is fiercely anti-firearms, especially after being mugged at gunpoint four years ago.

CONTINUE READING NEVERLAND LOST FEATURED IN TIMES ONLINE.

BIG, Big prints...

Neverland Lost is being exhibited at Fnac venues across paris debuting at Montparnasse.