Some two years after his death in New York, music icon David Bowie is making a return, of sorts, to the Big Apple. The final leg of “David Bowie is” — a traveling exhibition surveying the musician’s life as told through artifacts, clothing, and a variety of media — makes its final stop at the Brooklyn museum, through July 15. First opening in 2013 at London’s Victoria and Albert museum, the exhibition, which began as an ode to a living artist, has since become something of eulogistic spectacle, with fans worldwide making the pilgrimage to encounter all manner of Bowie-related ephemera (one estimate in late 2017 put the number of exhibition visitors at 1.8 million). For many, Bowie and his various personae — from the protean glam Ziggy stardust and Aladdin Sane to the Weimar era-inspired Thin White Duke — exuded almost mythical qualities when he was alive, radically redefining popular culture and conventions of sexuality. In death, “David Bowie is” is a monument to the rocker’s ability to transcend boundaries, even posthumously.Bowie’s cast of genre-defying characters would seem to render ready summary of his career an almost herculean task. Indeed, the very title of the exhibition gestures toward the open-ended nature of defining exactly “who” its subject was, and who he continues to be. All the same, Victoria and Albert museum co-curators Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh set about doing so, gaining exclusive access to Bowie’s personal archives, combing through some 75,000 items before selecting around 300 to include in the exhibition. The result is a show that is at once a fanboy’s wunderkammer of all things Bowie and an anthropological tour de force.Eschewing a more traditional chronology as its curatorial conceit, the show is instead grouped around themes — the performer’s early years, songwriting, costumes, collaborations, and performances. Tending toward sensory saturation over spare aesthetics, Bowie hits can be heard piped in over speakers while on large screens, the artist’s greatest performances can be viewed. Bowie was never an artist of half-measures or reserve, even at his most cool, and the vibrancy of the exhibition seems an appropriate lens through which to survey his artistic vigor.Among the 85 handwritten lyric sheets on display, standouts include Bowie’s drafts of “Lady Stardust,” “Ziggy Stardust,” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.” Often scribbled on single sheets of paper or a series of index cards, these missives — scribbled notes and all — are glimpses afforded into the origins of some of Bowie’s most iconic hits. Costumes, too, play a large role in the exhibition — a total of 60 appear — featuring some of Bowie’s most recognizable looks. Among them, Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto’s striped body suit worn by Bowie during the Aladdin Sane tour, as well as Freddie Burretti’s ice blue, three-piece suit which Bowie wore for the filming of the “Life on Mars” music video.To say that Bowie was prolific in his creative process is an understatement, and “David Bowie is” certainly makes that point. But, just as importantly, what also becomes clear is that while his status as a singular visionary is undisputed, Bowie regularly sought out collaborations with other artists. For legendary music photographer and director Mick Rock, a longtime friend whose work with Bowie is included in the exhibition, the collaborative process was one of a kind. Having directed Bowie’s music videos for “Life on Mars,” “Space Oddity,” and “Jean Genie,” Rock also photographed Bowie extensively during his Ziggy stardust and Aladdin Sane years (Rock puts the number of Bowie photographs he’s taken at around 5,000). Capturing some of the most iconic images of the performer, Rock was a firsthand observer to Bowie’s meteoric rise to stardom. “He was very encouraging and trusting,” Rock notes of his time with Bowie, “a phenomenal artist and a sweet soul.”To be sure, Bowie’s collaborations took on many forms. A Xeroxed transcript from William S. Burroughs’ 1974 Rolling Stone interview with Bowie is an example of one of his more unusual pairings (not counting his duet with Bing Crosby in a rendition of “Little Drummer Boy.”) Burroughs and Bowie had never met before the interview and the resulting Q&A is likely one of the most bizarre in Rolling Stone history, touching upon everything from mind control to the inadequacy of the concept of love (when asked by Burroughs as to whether he had met Andy Warhol, Bowie replied, “I met this man who was the living dead.”)Of the items on display, it is perhaps Bowie’s own works on paper — often small — that speak to the performer’s artistic vitality. Ranging from a delicate pencil drawing the musician made of his mother when he was just 16, to a charcoal sketch made in 1994 depicting the New York city skyline reminiscent in style of German painter Erich Heckel — an influence on the rocker — Bowie’s works illustrate his unique ability not only to be front and center, but waiting in the wings, observing the world around him. For many, Bowie was from another planet, an origin story he himself promoted at various points in his career. However, to attribute his body of work to some other worldly inspiration is, perhaps, to miss the point all together. The worlds Bowie dreamed up were not intended to herald some distant land. instead, they served as means through which to orient the one we have in common.— This article appears in the Spring 2018 edition of BlouinShop magazine.
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Founder: Louise Blouin
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