The MJ Memorial Photos You Really Want To See: The Coffin, The Brochure, The Kids, The Hearse & More

It's over. The funeral and the memorial service for the King Of The Pop have occurred and the Jackson family is now having their own private luncheon at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.

It was beautiful, moving, well coordinated and produced. Wonderful performances and eloquent speeches echoed the sentiments of most of the world. Somber but still warm and loving, it was a respectable and fitting tribute.

You'll be able to see broadcasts and videos of Mariah, Trey, Usher, Smokey, Stevie, Lionel, John Mayer and the other performers and speakers, along with his daughter's heartbreaking comments, played over and over again online, on youtube, on tv, etc.

But let's face it, what you really want to see is that coffin, his kids, the brochure and other little incidentals. I've got those here for you, thanks to the AP and Getty images.

Please click on all the images below to enlarge.

The Tickets:


The Memorial Brochure Cover:

the back of the memorial brochure:


A somber Joe Jackson leaves his Encino home, heading for Forest Lawn Cemetery early this morning:


The Motorcade consisted of black Cadillac Escalades, black Ford Explorers and black Rolls Royces:



The Hearse:




The motorcade leaving Forest Lawn cemetery on their way to the Staples Center:

and on the freeway:


A good look at that gold-plated Casket (Coffin):



above and below: The Promethean velvet-lined model by the Batesville Casket Company. Supposedly, Michael Jackson ordered it for himself, after seeing that James Brown was buried in the same years ago. It's a $25,000, solid bronze, 14-karat gold-plated, custom casket.



The pallbearers each wore a single white glove:

above: His brothers each wore one white sequined glove. From left: Randy, Tito, Marlon, Jackie and Jermaine


above: a tender moment as brother Jermaine tosses a rose onto Michael's casket while singing "smile".

The Children; Paris, Prince and Blanket:

above: Michael Jackson's children, Paris Michael Katherine, Prince Michael II (aka Blanket) and Michael Joseph Jr. (aka Prince Michael) .


above: Janet (L) and La Toya (R) with Prince Michael Jackson II (Blanket) and Paris Jackson


above: the heartbreaking and unexpected speech from Paris Jackson

How skinny Al Sharpton is now (nice eulogy, by the way):


Yes, it's true, Corey Feldman donned his "Michael Jackson" costume:




above: A Michael Jackson mural with fan's signatures stands in front of the Staples Center.


above: A Michael Jackson impersonator poses outside at the public memorial service at the Staples Center.

See a video of the memorial in its entirety here.


More Michael Jackson Links:

• A gallery of the best, the worst and the weirdest artwork inspired by Michael, go here.



• His auction items from Neverland Ranch, go here


• See what items of Michael's, Marilyn's and Elvis' got the highest auction bids here.



• Buy Michael Jackson CDs and books here on Amazon

Nina Levy's Family Portraits Make Yours Look Less Frightening.

above: family resemblance, 30" x 24" EDITION OF 6 + A.P.

Artist Nina Levy has been living and working in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since 1996. A prolific photographer and sculptor, her work has been widely exhibited across the United States, including The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. where her life sized portraits of four artists' heads hung as part of the gallery reopening in 2007 (shown below):


above: a view of the installation in the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian, 2007

above: life-sized self-portrait sculpture Spectator, 2002 (also used in the 2007 National Portrait Gallery installation)

An artist who has long worked with body parts made of oil-painted resin, gypsum or clay, fiberglass, cast polyurethane and other materials for over a decade to create large outdoor sculptures, indoor installations, portrait heads, and self-portraits in many forms, created her own series of family portraits or 'family resemblance' from 2006-2008.


above: Woman with huge fist (self-portrait) 2008

She has a very impressive education, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Yale with a B.A. in English and Art in 1989 and she received a Masters in Fine Arts from The University of Chicago in 1993. She's also the mother of two young boys, whom are frequently the subjects of her recent photographs. But these aren't the kind of family photos you're used to seeing embellishing hallways and mantels.

To say that her portraits of herself and her family, consisting largely of her two sons, Archer, now 6 and Ansel, now 2, are bizarre is an understatement. Creepy and disturbing may be more appropriate descriptors for some viewers.


above: Nina's older son Archer with giant prosthetic baby head,2007

above: Nina's youngest son Ansel with giant prosthetic baby head, 2007

What's respectable, and certainly unexpected nowadays, is that there is no digital manipulation involved in her photographs. She actually sculpts the enlarged body parts or prostheses and then juxtaposes them with her subjects, so that the size relationships you see are actual real physical representations.



Babies eating babies, children cradling what look like lifeless bodies and small-framed, vulnerable boys sporting hulk-like hands and steroidal limbs are the subjects of some of her these recent photos. Here's a look at much of her family portraits and family resemblance photographs, 2006-2008:





Nina explains: "I have been interested in using fragmentation and shifts in scale to explore both discomfort with the human body and with other people"








"I started to make photographs, mostly featuring myself interacting with a series of sculptural props and prosthetics that I modeled and fabricated from clay or plaster and cast in resin," she says.



I am now the mother of two small boys, and the primary subject of my work has become my own dysfunctional parenting and the often overwhelming intensity of small children"






"Ansel, however, boycotted my last photo shoot," says Nina, "and is under-represented... but thanks to the promise of a highly desirable set of action figures, Archer was willing to assist me"







"The photographs were, and still remain, very low tech - there is no digital manipulation," says Nina. "All of the objects and people in the images exist exactly as they appear."



Special thanks to the UK's Telegraph for the quotes from the interview with Nina.

HER PORTRAIT COMMISSIONS:

Her commissioned portrait heads are available cast in resin, ultracal or gypsum painted with oils and in more traditional treatments and materials (bronze, plaster, cement). Please contact Nina Levy for more information.

See her website here.
To check out her work prior to 2002, go here.
all photos: NINA LEVY/REX FEATURES