Eyes on: Nicole Miller

July 7, 2021

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Born in 1982 in Tucson, Arizona, Nicole Miller moved to Los Angeles in 2001 to attend CalArts and continued with a graduate degree from USC Roski School of Fine Arts; she still lives and works in Los Angeles. Recently, Miller has had solo exhibitions at Ballroom Marfa, Centre d’Art Contemporain Geneva, the High Line in New York, and Kunst Werke in Berlin. She has also shown at LAXART in Los Angeles, and her work has been featured in major museum exhibitions such as Made in LA at the Hammer Museum, Fore at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Dallas Biennale at Dallas Contemporary. Last year she completed an eighteen-month project with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her work is included in the collections of LACMA, the Hammer Museum, and SFMOMA.

Now the presentation is made, why do we want to talk about Nicole?

Back in 2018, Nicole purchased Rick Baker’s Michael Jackson Body molds from the movie “Moonwalker” for $11,000 at an auction house.

This lifecast of Jackson was created during the production of the film.

This lifecast is comprised of five two-sided plaster molds and a positive cast created with the molds. The set includes two arm molds, two leg molds, and one torso mold. Both the arms and legs were cast in a folded position. Each of the five molds is two sided and is currently held together with duct tape. All of the molds are labeled “M. Jackson Life Cast.”

The included fiberglass cast has been assembled into a full-size model and painted black. The set has sustained some wear and the model does not have a right arm, but the set remains in otherwise good condition. Torso dimensions: torso 10” x 14” x 27” (25 cm x 36 cm x 69 cm); arm dimensions (each): 11” x 8” x 22” (28 cm x 20 cm x 56 cm); leg dimensions (each) 11” x 5” x 16” (28 cm x 13 cm x 41 cm); positive cast dimensions: 23” x 16” x 44” (58 cm x 41 cm x 112 cm)

Nicole Miller then decided to make a bronze statue from the cast and called it “Michael in Black”.

This is the most open to interpretation piece she ever made. The sculpture presents Michael Jackson in a humble and vulnerable pose, with his head slightly lowered, yet he is placed upon a pedestal.

“This image of the entertainer who was called The King of Pop in such a tentative posture posits a disconnect between the public and private selves of Jackson but is also complicated by his non-unitary public persona, which was simultaneously powerful and sensitive.”