Michael in Black by Nicole Miller (2022) focuses on a single sculptural work by the artist and filmmaker: a bronze cast of Michael Jackson’s kneeling figure, poured from a mold made directly from his body circa 1987.
This charged object comprises myriad aspects of performance, celebrity, and image: the objecthood of the performer, the potency and perversity of objects, death, grief, and editing.
The publication coalesces images of Miller’s work alongside newly commissioned texts and visual artworks by a cast of other artists and writers, as well as republished texts and existing artwork recontextualized through the publication’s subject.

♒︎ On Saturday evening, Nicole Miller will be in conversaton with Lauren Mackler, editor and founder of Public Fiction - be welcome ! ♒︎

Michael in Black by Nicole Miller is co-published by the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA) and Public Fiction.

Featuring new texts by Negar Azimi, Hannah Black, Jared Sexton, and Greg Tate; republished texts by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Anna Deavere Smith, and Ocean Vuong; interviews with Dr. Yvonne Cagle, Alonzo King, Nicole Miller, and Bradford Young; artworks by Nikita Gale, Kazu Hiro, Ligia Lewis, and Jasper Marsalis; and additional plates by Lutz Bacher, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Todd Gray, Lyle Ashton Harris, Arthur Jafa, Deana Lawson, Herman Makkink, A. Michael Noll, Heji Shin, and others.