The show of 90 works first hung in London's National Portrait Gallery in 2018 to widespread critical acclaim. It then toured in Paris and Bonn before coming to Helsinki. The German and Finnish shows come after a new raft of allegations that Jackson groomed and sexually assaulted children, detailed in the 2018 documentary "Finding Neverland". The exhibition will nevertheless run in the Finnish capital "as planned", organisers said, with a text at the entrance acknowledging that "current conversations may have changed the way the exhibition is interpreted".
"We can't shy away from these difficult subjects and we of course condemn all kinds of abuse," Arja Miller, chief curator at Espoo Museum of Modern Art, told AFP. "But we also want to provide a platform for open discussion and for artists' voices," she said. "This exhibition and these artists are not celebrating Michael Jackson, but analysing his meaning in our culture," Miller added. Miller said some organisations refused to sponsor the exhibition over concerns about the controversies surrounding the singer, despite not having seen the show.