Banksy mocks Michael Jackson

Banksy, the wryly subversive British street artist, has added a new famous name to his list of the lampooned: Michael Jackson.

A new drawing by the Bristol native shows the ersatz King of Pop dressed as an old woman and kneeling with a candy cane in hand, opening the door of a woodland cottage in invitation for a young boy and girl waiting outside. The riff on Jackson (who was acquitted last year on child molestation charges) in the predator’s role from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale is one of four works by Banksy on display at an exhibition space called Santa’s Ghetto that opened Friday in central London, according to the Times of London.

Banksy has a flair for sharp-edged art in public places. In September, he dressed an inflatable doll as a hooded Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner and stuck it on a Disneyland ride and, two years ago, he painted a series of murals on the controversial barriers that separate Israel from the West Bank, including one of a rope ladder.

-- Geoff Boucher