david bowie exhibit tour

The official augmented reality adaptation of the legendary exhibition, introduced and narrated by David Bowie’s close friend and Oscar winner, Gary Oldman.

Explore the full museum show in stunning detail, in the intimacy of your own environment, without glass barriers or crowds of visitors. This spectacular iteration of the iconic show is yours forever.

Over 50 high-res 3D costumes. Plus many never before seen items. And much more.

On the 72nd anniversary of David Bowie’s birth, the David Bowie is application launches on iOS and Android platforms.

It includes over 400 high resolution captures of David Bowie’s costumes, sketches, handwritten lyrics, notes, music videos and original works of art are presented in striking arrangements and immersive settings, as well as dozens of never before seen items, including archival videos, drawings, photographs, and notes.

The app works on iOS and Android devices that support AR.

Please contact us at [email protected] with any questions.

A project by The David Bowie Archive, Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. and Planeta

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David Bowie, and His Personas, Will Live On at Victoria and Albert Museum

The London museum will house more than 80,000 items from the star’s music career at a new David Bowie Center for the Study of Performing Arts. It will open in 2025.

By Remy Tumin

Over a 55-year career, David Bowie redefined the essence of cool by embracing an outsider status. Now, Ziggy Stardust and all of the musician’s other personas will have a permanent home.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London will house more than 80,000 items from Bowie’s career at a new David Bowie Center for the Study of Performing Arts, the museum announced on Thursday. The center, which will be at a new outpost of the museum called the V&A East Storehouse at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in the Stratford section of London, will open in 2025.

“With David’s life’s work becoming part of the U.K.’s national collections, he takes his rightful place amongst many other cultural icons and artistic geniuses,” Bowie’s estate said in a statement. “David’s work can be shared with the public in ways that haven’t been possible before, and we’re so pleased to be working closely with the V&A to continue to commemorate David’s enduring cultural influence.”

Bowie died in 2016 , two days after his 69th birthday.

In a statement, the museum said that the acquisition and the creation of the center had been made possible by a combined donation of 10 million pounds (about $12 million) from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group, adding that the donation would support “the ongoing conservation, research and study of the archive.” Warner Music bought Bowie’s entire songwriting catalog last year.

Beyond 70,000 images of Bowie taken by the likes of Terry O’Neill, Brian Duffy and Helmut Newton, the collection includes letters, sheet music, original costumes, fashion, other photography, film, music videos, set designs, instruments, album artwork, awards, and of course, fashion.

Many of those will be familiar to fans: Bowie’s ensembles worn as his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust; Kansai Yamamoto’s costumes for the “Aladdin Sane” tour in 1973; the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and the British designer Alexander McQueen for the 1997 “Earthling” album cover.

Handwritten lyrics for songs like “Fame,” Heroes” and “Ashes to Ashes” will also be on display, including examples of Bowie’s cut-up technique. The artist looked to William S. Burroughs, the postmodern author, as inspiration to cut up written text and rearrange it into lyrics.

In 1997, Bowie told The Times that he worked with that method “about 40 percent of the time,” which, in that year, meant using a Macintosh computer.

“I feed into it the fodder, and it spews out reams of paper with these arbitrary combinations of words and phrases,” he said.

Bowie’s personal writing and “intimate notebooks from every year of Bowie’s life and career” and “unrealized projects” will also be on display, many of which have never been made available to the public, the museum said.

The permanent collection comes 10 years after the museum created “David Bowie Is,” a vast survey that traced the beginnings of David Jones, a saxophone and blues player growing up in London, as he became David Bowie, a transcendent figure in music, art and fashion. The traveling exhibit made its final stop in 2018 in New York , the city Bowie called home at the end of his life.

“I believe everyone will agree with me when I say that when I look back at the last 60 years of post-Beatles music, that if only one artist could be in the V&A it should be David Bowie,” Nile Rodgers, a longtime collaborator, said in a statement. “He didn’t just make art. He was art!”

‘David Bowie Is’ Incredible: Inside the Enigmatic Star’s New Retrospective

By Dan Hyman

Over his multi-dimensional, culture-encompassing five-decade career, David Bowie has proved himself many things: glamorous rock star, sultry singer, boundary-pushing performance artist, sexual icon. But upon experiencing David Bowie Is – the massive delight of a retrospective art exhibition on Bowie that opens in the U.S. today at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago – one walks away with a perhaps unexpected conclusion: Bowie was, well, a bit of a hoarder.

Yes, the Thin White Duke – thanks in large part to employing a full-time archivist – has held onto what seems like nearly every artifact accumulated over his career.

Making our way through the winding and visually stunning look into Bowie’s life and cultural impact, accompanied to great effect by high-tech, location-detection-enabled sound, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer mass quantity of information being thrust at you. Still, there were five central things David Bowie Is taught us.

David Bowie Is a Fantastic Painter and Illustrator This isn’t the first time Bowie has unveiled his artwork (see his iconic 1978 portrait of Iggy Pop, conceived while they were recording together in Berlin), but his love for visual design goes back to his childhood. The exhibition includes such artifacts as the futuristic drawings of aliens (inspiration for Ziggy, perhaps?) from Bowie’s late-Fifties school sketchbook and the whimsical tour posters he drew for his early bands, the Delta Lemons and the Bowmen. Still, it’s the elaborately detailed visual planning for his tours – including the staging sketches for the Ziggy Stardust tour and the 1980 The Floor Show TV special – that are most fascinating.

David Bowie Is an Avid Collector of Minutiae The depth of Bowie’s archive is mind-blowing. From the original acetate advance of The Velvet Underground and Nico , gifted to him by their then-manager Andy Warhol, to a government letter confirming his official name change from David Jones to David Bowie, the exhibit confirms just how much energy Bowie has put into maintaining his legacy. Some of the most incredible offerings on display: a circa-1974 tissue blotted with Bowie’s lipstick, apartment keys for his West Berlin spread, a loin cloth worn by a cast member of 1980’s The Elephant Man and the trusty cocaine spoon kept in his pocket during the Diamond Dogs recording sessions.

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David Bowie Is a Style Icon Perhaps it goes without saying. But when confronted with a myriad of Bowie’s most famous stage outfits – pieces like the stiff, tubular, Dadaist get-up for his 1979 SNL rendition of “The Man Who Sold the World,” many of which were conceived for one-off performances – Bowie’s sartorial savvy is nothing short of remarkable. His entire style trajectory is on display here: From the green corduroy jacket he wore with an early band, the Kon-rads, to embroidered kimonos designed by Konsai Tamamoto for the Aladdin Sane tour and more modern fare like the Alexander McQueen gold brocade coat for 1997’s Earthling tour.

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David Bowie Is a Tech Geek at Heart Some of his contemporaries have decried modern technology, but Bowie has always looked to the future. As the exhibit demonstrates, the rock star has long been fascinated by new innovations: see the Brian Eno-gifted SYNTHI synthesizer he used for the Low , Heroes and Lodger sessions; the complex lighting schemes – sketched out in intricate detail by Bowie – he developed for his 1976 Station to Station tour; the Verbasizer computer application he helped develop to spark his lyrical creativity; or the puppets with projections of his own face on them from his 1997 50th Birthday Concert.

David Bowie Is an Unflinching Self-Editor As original lyric sheets on display prove, Bowie has been his own worst critic. In the now-ink blotted lyrics for “Life on Mars” and “Starman,” Bowie was constantly changing his mind with his lyrics, crossing them out, replacing them with better ideas. “Rebel Rebel,” which wound up with the line “We like dancing and we look divine” but was originally slated to read, “We like dancing and we like to ball.” Most exciting though was the original lyric sheet for his “Fame” collaboration with John Lennon, on which Bowie changed the lyric “Fame, what you need is in the limo” to the perhaps less deriding “Fame, what you like is in the limo.”

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David Bowie Retrospective Starts Its Final Bow at Brooklyn Museum

"Bowie pushed everything to the next level. We needed to reflect that in the exhibition."

By Mary von Aue

Mary von Aue

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After five years of touring internationally, the record-breaking David Bowie career retrospective ‘David Bowie Is’ will take its final bow at the Brooklyn Museum beginning on March 2. But when the exhibit first premiered at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in March 2013, expectations were low. “No other museum had booked it for the tour,” co-creator Victoria Broackes confessed, “and we’d published 10,000 copies of the catalog. There wasn’t a lot of optimism that it was going to be a rip-roaring success.”

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As the London museum’s theater and performance curators, Broackes and her co-creator Geoffrey Marsh wanted a show as innovative as its subject. “Bowie pushed everything to the next level. We needed to reflect that in the exhibition,” Broackes said.

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The risks paid off. David Bowie Is became the London museum’s fastest selling show, with 312,000 visitors lining up on the first day. The museum had to extend its hours some nights just to accommodate flocks of tourists who saw the temporary exhibit as one of London’s top new destinations. A tour suddenly became inevitable, and the exhibit has gone on to sell roughly two million tickets across 11 cities, now holding the record for most visited exhibit in the Victoria & Albert’s history. “We were not expecting this degree of success whatsoever.”

Broackes’ innovative form of storytelling suggests a new methodology in how to engage with musical subjects. “Sound and vision came first here,” Broackes explains. “They’re as much an object as any of the objects.”

Although she was originally reluctant to use headphones in the exhibition, fearing it would prevent visitors from socializing, Broackes recruited German audio company Sennheiser to create an immersive audio experience. “We had not used or seen headphones of this type, where the sound follows you. You don’t have to press any buttons, it knows where you are and it plays you the right thing at the time.”

Rather than taking cues from other museums, Broackes’ reference points came from live events. Leading a team of performance designers and audio technicians, sections of the exhibit begin to feel like private concerts.

The sprawling exhibit, which includes over 60 performance costumes, handwritten lyrics, and Bowie’s own oil paintings, breaks new ground through its non-linear storytelling. Rather than a chronological walk-through of the music legend’s life, David Bowie Is creates separate spheres for Bowie’s creations, encapsulated by the cities, people and artists that shaped them. The exhibit functions as a constellation of Bowie’s varied experiments, where fans can ditch ground control and float between each era like Major Tom.

“We have the original backdrop from when he performed in The Elephant Man on Broadway, and moments from when he worked on Julian Schnabel’s film Basquiat , on the life of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.” Yokobosky’s New York curation delves into Bowie’s collaboration with other locals in film, theater, and television, not to mention that time John Lennon swung by the recording studio while he was recording “Fame.” “While most of the Young Americans album was recorded in Philadelphia, ‘Fame’ was actually recorded in New York City. That’s how John Lennon just happened to stop by the studio that day,” he explains. “He actually did a drawing for David in the studio and I have that drawing in the show.”

Yokobosky is one of the many exhibition designers to expand the collection to showcase Bowie’s local influences. While in Germany, the exhibition added more pieces from Bowie’s time in West Berlin, his collaborations with then-roommate Iggy Pop, and the pivotal albums his time there yielded: Low, Heroes, and Lodger. When David Bowie Is opened in Tokyo in January 2017, Bowie’s collaboration with designer Kansai Yamamoto took a main stage, highlighting some of Bowie’s most iconic costumes for Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane.

The way David Bowie Is presents the artist’s work alongside his influences is an ideal set-up for expansion. Without having to be anchored to a chronological timeline, visitors can move through a topography of scenes and cities where he experimented, and host cities are encouraged to add to that map. The more David Bowie Is toured, the more its universe expanded.

The feeling of floating in space while seeing the exhibit was intentional. “I really feel that Major Tom, his creation of the character of an astronaut, an explorer, really was the person that he was.” Yokobosky said. “When people leave the exhibition, I’m hoping that they’re going to feel that sense of exploration and want to try new things.”

“Bowie was a New Yorker,” she said. “It’s the only other place apart from London that he chose to make his home for any length of time, a place he identified with and could be free in and could be creative in. So it just seems absolutely appropriate that just as he based his life here and there, the exhibition should start in London and end in New York.”

“David Bowie asked that the exhibit open in London and close here,” Anne Pasternak, the Shelby White and Leon Levy director of the Brooklyn Museum, told press ahead of the exhibit’s Brooklyn debut.

While Broackes and her crew were shocked by the success of David Bowie Is, the Brooklyn Museum is prepared for the rush of fans in their last chance to see the show. Jean-Jerome Peytavi, Brooklyn Museum chief marketing and communications director, said, “advance sales for David Bowie Is have been the most successful to date compared to any exhibition presented at the Brooklyn Museum.” Only a few advanced tickets were made available online prior to the show’s opening, and yet 20,000 tickets have already sold.

“We obviously changed parts of it, but we what we haven’t done is wrap up on Bowie.”

After Bowie’s death, the present-tense nature of the title, David Bowie Is, felt uncomfortable to some. Fortunately, the exhibition was never meant to be a sequential walk-through of David Bowie’s life and therefore didn’t need to be wrapped up into a definitive ending. Not only has Yokobosky added New York influences to the exhibition, but he has also created a new section dedicated solely to Bowie’s personal collection of fan art, a genre that has no end in sight.

“People made art for him beginning in the 1970s and he always kept all of his fan art,” Yokobosky said, “but it’s never been seen in public before.”

David Bowie continues to exist as many things to his fans, which is what inspired the exhibition’s title. “David Bowie Is was very much conceived as a sentence that could be completed by everybody, and puts him very firmly in a present tense,” Broackes said.

“We considered whether [the present tense] was still appropriate, and in a strange way, it seemed more appropriate than ever.” After five years, the exhibition continues to be an evolving body of work that orbits around David Bowie. His influence isn’t fading, and Yokobosky’s addition suggests that art inspired by Bowie will only keep growing long after David Bowie Is closes. But for now, fans can still have their very own Space Oddity, floating inside Bowie’s celestial body of work at the Brooklyn Museum. As Broackes insists, “all of his art and influences are, just as much as when he was alive, all around you.”

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David Bowie is, March 2, 2018 through July 15, 2018 (Image: DIG_E_2018_David_Bowie_is_01_PS11.jpg Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2018)

David Bowie is, March 2, 2018 through July 15, 2018 (Image: DIG_E_2018_David_Bowie_is_02_PS11.jpg Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2018)

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David Bowie is

• Your sound experience starts here. The David Bowie is exhibition constitutes a stunning technical and artistic success that charts the trajectory of an artist who defies all categorization. Working closely with the exhibition’s designers and curators, Sennheiser has been a key partner on the project. Through its extensive technical expertise and leading-edge audio solutions, Sennheiser has helped to make the exhibition a momentous cultural event. The guidePORT system provides each visitor with a seamless immersion in David Bowie’s music and world with exceptional audio quality synchronized to the exhibits, while 3D audio experiences allow visitors to be totally submerged in sound and vision, capturing the sensations and emotions of a live concert. Supporting David Bowie is goes to the very heart of Sennheiser’s identity: since 1945, the company has been a force for innovation and continuous improvement in audio, proudly serving creators and artists around the world. Sound experience by Sennheiser
• David Bowie is Teaching You that Things Always Change Space imagery and exploration have been continuing themes in David Bowie’s visualizations of music. Since “Space Oddity” in the late 1960s—the same period when astronaut William “Bill” Anders photographed Earth from outer space for the first time—Bowie cast himself as the astronaut Major Tom. His experiences as an astronaut were reprised in “Ashes to Ashes” (1980), “Hallo Spaceboy” (1995), and finally “Blackstar” (2015). Like a film, a Broadway show, or a television program in which the lead actor is closely associated with a particular role, Bowie wrote stories and characters that will forever be known as his. Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack, and the Thin White Duke were each so distinctive and thoughtful that the music, words, and images he assigned to them will always remind us of David Bowie. Here I am floating ‘round my tin can Far above the moon Planet Earth is blue And there’s nothing I can do —David Bowie, excerpt from “Space Oddity” lyrics
• David Bowie is a Success in New York Stage and Screen Beginning in 1971, Bowie was frequently in New York City, promoting albums, performing on tour dates, recording new music, and visiting nightclubs. His sold-out performances of Aladdin Sane at Radio City Music Hall are legendary. Following periods of living in Los Angeles and Berlin, Bowie lived in New York for extended periods, and in 1992 made New York City his permanent residence. In 1979, he was invited to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live . Typically, a guest performed two or three songs with their band. Atypically, Bowie conceived of three distinct performance “events” for his appearance. Each was met with astonishment and applause. Soon after, Bowie prepared and performed The Elephant Man , also in an unconventional manner. Rather than using a prosthesis as in David Lynch’s film version, Bowie relied on his mime training and modulated his body to evoke John Merrick’s physical disabilities. Promoted as the first rock star on Broadway, Bowie drew big audiences for many months.
• David Bowie is Where We Are Now David Bowie was and continues to be an inspiration for musicians, performers, radicals, and artists. He channeled avant-garde influences into music and performances with mass appeal, and he had an uncanny ability to anticipate and define the direction of popular culture. His understanding of his audience, alongside a tendency toward bold and unpredictable steps, means that his artistic integrity remains uncompromised. For thousands, he is a conduit for new ideas and a visionary icon. Bowie’s death on January 10, 2016, just two days after his sixty-ninth birthday and the release of Blackstar , his acclaimed final album, evoked a phenomenal global outpouring of grief and marked the end of a golden era. To adapt a phrase coined by his record label in the 1970s, “There’s old music, there’s new music, and there’s David Bowie.”
• David Bowie is Saying You're Wonderful Give Me Your Hands Touring “What a show . . . Bowie still manages to project more charisma during one song than most modern-day stars manage in a career.” —Maurice O’Brien, Irish Independent (Dublin), November 24, 2003 David Bowie was a radically innovative live performer. In more than a thousand live dates in thirty-one countries, during twelve international tours between 1972 and 2004, he fused rock music with performance techniques from mime to street dance: “I could never consider putting something on the stage that doesn’t owe something to theater,” he said. He always attracted record audiences: eighty thousand people at a New Zealand gig in 1983, the largest crowd as a percentage of the population anywhere in the world that year, according to the Guinness Book of Records . He devised new ways to reach them, too: one of his gigs was beamed in 5.1 surround sound to more than fifty thousand viewers, in eighty-six cinemas in twenty-two countries in 2003. Through countless websites and BowieNet, the first Internet service provider launched by a musician, he continued to tour the world in virtual form.
• David Bowie is Quite Aware of what he's Going Through “Black-and-White” Years David Bowie first saw Berlin from a train: he had completed his 1973 tour of Japan and hopped on the Trans-Siberian Railway en route back to England. It was West Berlin then, part of a divided city with an infamous past. Bowie was curious to see this city that had spawned many of his artistic touchstones: the films Metropolis and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , the art group Die Brücke, and the musical Cabaret . When Bowie moved there in the mid-1970s, Germany was also the site for new music: Neu!, Kraftwerk, and Giorgio Moroder. Berlin became the anchor point for his groundbreaking triptych, Low (1977), “Heroes” (1977), and Lodger (1979). At 155 Hauptstrasse, Bowie left behind the pressures of celebrity in Los Angeles and relished anonymity in an older, grittier, war-torn, and divided city in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, “die Mauer.” These were the “black-and-white” years (black-and-white suits, black stage sets with white lighting), which included fourteen months of intense musical and artistic experimentation with Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, and Tony Visconti. In 2013, Bowie returned to the idea of an “undivided” Berlin in the song “Where Are We Now?”
• David Bowie is Wearing Many Masks Stage and Screen In the 1950s, when Bowie was growing up, his greatest idols were film stars. Pop singers—whose careers were often brief—sometimes transitioned to second careers in film and entertainment, as exemplified by Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. Seeing diversification as a key to a long career, Bowie trained with actor and mime artist Lindsay Kemp and began to audition for film and stage roles. In Bowie’s lifetime, he acted in more than twenty films, as well as on television ( Baal ) and in theater ( The Elephant Man ). His role in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth inspired the musical Lazarus , which he created with Enda Walsh in 2015. As an actor, Bowie played an eclectic cast of characters, both historical and imagined: Andy Warhol, Pontius Pilate, the Goblin King. Often preferring the cutting edge over the mainstream, he collaborated with international directors— from the Americans Tony Scott and David Lynch and the British American Christopher Nolan to Germany’s Uli Edel and Japan’s Nagisa Oshima.
• David Bowie is Wearing a Mask of his Own Face Ziggy Stardust Bowie wanted “the music to look like it sounded.” His creation Ziggy Stardust added to his personae, whom Bowie seemed truly to inhabit, not just to act. The life story of the otherworldly Ziggy followed his rise and fall from fame. The character was loosely based on many influences, including eccentric rock ’n’ rollers Vince Taylor and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, as well as Bowie’s idol Little Richard. Along with his distinctive bright red haircut, Bowie wore fabulous and ever more flamboyant costumes, resulting in an increase in “costume changes” during the tour. In July 1973, at the height of Ziggy’s popularity, Bowie chose—characteristically—to surprise his fans (and some members of his band). Just before the song “Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide,” he announced, “Not only is it the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do.”
• David Bowie is Famous Young Americans During the Diamond Dogs tour, Bowie began to record music for his next album, Young Americans . Influenced in part by the music emerging from Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, the musical explorer Bowie turned in a new direction. The “Philadelphia Sound,” as it became known, was engineered by Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell and featured large sections of strings and horns—a precursor to disco. Sigma Sound Studios was one of the first US studios to offer twenty-four-track recording. Bowie recorded much of the complex arrangements for Young Americans there, creating what he described as “plastic soul.” His new collaborators included vocalist Luther Vandross, drummer Andy Newmark (from Sly and the Family Stone), and guitarist Carlos Alomar—the last of whom would continue to work with Bowie for more than twenty years. A swift redirection from the theatrical songs of Diamond Dogs , Young Americans became his breakthrough album in America, yielding the title track and the No. 1 hit “Fame.”
• David Bowie is Watching You Diamond Dogs Bowie’s Diamond Dogs tour of 1974 was “a combination of contemporary music and theater . . . several years ahead of its time. . . the most original spectacle in rock I have ever seen.” So a writer for Melody Maker told its readers back in the UK. The tour’s dystopian cityscape aesthetic was inspired by George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . To bring his ambitious vision to life, Bowie assembled, alongside outstanding musicians, a stellar lineup of theatrical collaborators quite unlike that of any previous rock tour, including designers Jules Fisher and Mark Ravitz, and choreographer Toni Basil. After the first two months of touring, Bowie began to record the Young Americans album in Philadelphia. When he returned to the tour, he abandoned the elaborate set and revised the set list to include new songs (such as “Win”). The Year of the Diamond Dogs tour became The Soul Tour , sometimes referred to as “Philly Dogs.” Despite the spectacular artistic success of the tour (in both versions), no official film was shot. Footage from Philadelphia (where Bowie recorded the live album David Live ) is shown in this exhibition for the first time.
• David Bowie is a Picture of the Future Music Videos “It has to be three-dimensional,” Bowie said in 1974. “I’m not content just writing songs.” His pioneering music videos, created in collaboration with talented directors and artists, set benchmarks for creativity and innovation. Musicians made promotional music films decades before MTV. In the 1940s, short music films preceded features, and in the early 1960s, film jukeboxes (the Scopitone) offered “live” performances by Neil Sedaka, Johnny Hallyday, and Brigitte Bardot, among others. The 1960s saw The Beatles and The Rolling Stones embrace both long and short forms—not just as a marketing device but as an extension of their overall art. The iconic “Ashes to Ashes” video of 1980 was storyboarded by Bowie and then filmed in part on Hastings beach, on the south coast of England, with extras plucked from London’s trendy Blitz nightclub. It was followed by many influential videos throughout the 1980s and 1990s, which became an effective vehicle for Bowie’s artistic expression and ever-evolving roster of character types.
• David Bowie is in the Best-Selling Show “Life on Mars?” “Life on Mars?,” one of Bowie’s best-loved, most influential, and most frequently reinterpreted singles, first appeared as a track on the album Hunky Dory in 1971. BBC session musicians provided the orchestral strings for an arrangement written by Mick Ronson, and Rick Wakeman embellished Bowie’s original piano part to great effect. In 1973, the album cut was released as a single on the back of Ziggy-mania, alongside a stunning promotional film created by Mick Rock. The song spent thirteen weeks on the British singles chart in 1973, reaching No. 3, and again in 2007 during screenings of the BBC series Life on Mars .  It has been covered by numerous artists, including Barbra Streisand, Phish, Seu Jorge, and Lorde.
• David Bowie is Moving like a Tiger on Vaseline Impact Bowie was adventurous both artistically and personally. Being in the public eye gave him a platform to surprise and shock with his often androgynous appearance, sparking open conversations about gender roles, the sexuality of clothing, and sexual preference. This bold and refreshing stance challenged the status quo. Bowie’s pioneering stage shows, costumes, album covers, and music videos were censored at times. But knowing the press value, he enjoyed a playfully subversive relationship with both the truth and the media. In 1972, he told the British music weekly Melody Maker that he was gay and always had been. At a time when few public figures openly discussed being gay, Bowie offered an unfettered perspective that prompted discussions and changed mind-sets. David Bowie inspired his audiences to dress up for his concerts, and his fans all over the world to express their sexuality—though still a challenging endeavor in many communities and societies. The BBC documentary shown here reveals Britain in 1973: the skepticism of the establishment, but also the adulation of the fans.
• David Bowie is Making Himself Up Characters In 1967, at age twenty, Bowie discovered the stage and the possibilities of delivering his ideas through the creation of extraordinary characters. In the 1960s, rock was about authenticity, but Bowie saw the future for the 1970s elsewhere—in acting, play, masks, makeup, costume, kabuki , mime, imagination. He was continually creating and borrowing—Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, the Thin White Duke, detective Nathan Adler, the Minotaur. But there was also “David Bowie” himself, a character-artist who, like the artist Marcel Duchamp in 1923, found that you can perform by not performing and that, in a celebrity-soaked world, a character offstage could remain onstage.
• David Bowie is Taking Advantage of what the Moment Offers Collaboration Bowie always personally controlled every aspect of his work, from the music and album covers to the costumes and stage sets to the merchandise on sale during his tours. His vision always derived from his collaborations, not only with musicians and producers but also with choreographers, artists, photographers, filmmakers, and the designers responsible for graphics, costumes, sets, and lighting. Over his career, he continually sought out collaborators, mainstream or avant-garde, famous or unknown, and always showed a particular talent for finding the right voice to express what he wanted to say. What didn’t work, he consistently left out. Bowie had a long-standing creative relationship with Tony Visconti, who produced thirteen albums, from Space Oddity in 1969 to Blackstar in 2016. Other significant but briefer collaborations included those with fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto, makeup artist Pierre La Roche, set and lighting designer Jules Fisher (all in the early 1970s); producer Nile Rodgers ( Let’s Dance , 1983, and Black Tie White Noise , 1993); and fashion designer Alexander McQueen (in the 1990s).
• David Bowie is Surprising Himself Recording Studio Between 1967 and 2016, Bowie released twenty-seven studio albums, in addition to more than 150 singles, live albums, and music videos. He recorded in studios around the world, including London, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Montreux, and though the locations and technologies changed, the recording studio was the scene of Bowie’s most intense work. During these fifty years, advances in sound recording transformed Bowie’s possibilities—from mono to surround sound, from four track to multitracking in the digital age. But recording still required total focus: silence, the mic, the musicians standing by, and the producer looking on from the control desk. Bowie revised his studios and techniques to meet his ambitions. Occasionally everything was planned in advance; usually he would get together with his musicians and work in the studio from ideas gathered in notebooks. Whatever the process or the external pressures, Bowie was renowned for his concentration, skill, and speed. He was ultimately always in control of his catalogue—conceiving, making, then filtering the final tracks for release.
• David Bowie is Never at a Loss for Words or Poses Song Creation For Bowie, songwriting integrated words, music, production, and imagery. Just as he layered influences from music, theater, and art, his songs build up meaning, “so that you see something new each time.” In the 1970s, he was fascinated by chance as a catalyst for creativity. Alongside conventional songwriting methods, he used “cut-up” techniques and, in the 1990s, a random word generator. Seeing the visual as part of the process, he also used painting to test musical textures. Bowie’s songs rarely offer a straightforward or unified meaning. “I like the idea that they’re vehicles for other people to interpret or use as they will,” he said. Nonetheless, poetic phrases— “a gazely stare” or “hot tramp”—and anthems, such as “we can be heroes,” are unmistakable Bowie and help to make him one of the most influential songwriters.
• David Bowie is Using Machine Age Knife Magic Creative Influences All artists take ideas from the world around them, but few spread the net so wide or create something so new with what they find. Bowie’s work was influenced by art, architecture, books, costume design, film, avant-garde performance, conversation, and all kinds of music. The catalyst for his creativity might be a title or the cover of a book, or a pose of an actress in a film, or a philosophy, or the “oblique strategy” of chance. Bowie’s energy in seeking out new ideas, and his skill in filtering them to find exactly what he needed, was a hallmark of his success. His work never bowed to record company expectations or repeated a winning formula. Bowie was always moving on to something else.
• David Bowie is Thinking About a World to Come Astronaut of Inner Space Beamed into homes through television sets across Britain, red-booted, red-haired Bowie sang “Starman” on the BBC’s Top of the Pops in July 1972. Television audiences had rarely seen anything like it. The next day at school and work, it was all anyone discussed. Alluding to the patterned textiles of the iconic London design house Liberty, Bowie called his look “ultra-violence in Liberty fabrics.” Admiring the visual style of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange , he made it his own, remaking the silhouette in a bold, colorful pattern. He was constructing a new identity, plucking ideas from everywhere, because he thought that pop needed an overhaul. And through his experimentation, through his questioning of gender and social norms, Bowie became a glamorous pioneer of invented identities.
• David Bowie is Floating in a Most Peculiar Way Breakthrough January 1969: Newspapers printed the first color photographs of Earth from space. Bowie wrote, “Planet Earth is blue / And there’s nothing I can do,” in a new song about an astronaut—Major Tom—alone in space. He titled it “Space Oddity”—a pun on Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey . The single was released in July, shortly before the launch of the Apollo 11 moon mission. On July 20, the BBC played it over footage of the moon landing. By October, “Space Oddity” was No. 5 on the UK record charts. David Bowie had achieved his dream of reaching a national audience. Major Tom, one of Bowie’s first song characters, is not only a heroic astronaut but a vulnerable, alienated everyman as well. Throughout his career, Bowie described characters in his songs and sometimes performed in their guise onstage. Major Tom returned in the songs “Ashes to Ashes” (1980), the single version of “Hallo Spaceboy” (1996), and “Blackstar” (2015).
• David Bowie is a Face in the Crowd Growing Up David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in the south London neighborhood of Brixton on January 8, 1947. By 1953, he had moved with his family to the suburbs, near Bromley. There, his older half-brother awakened David’s interest in jazz and the new Beat poetry. By 1963, sixteen-year-old David was fascinated by pop music, American culture, and fashion, and he played in local bands. He left school to work in a Mayfair advertising agency, but within a year he had left that job and decided to pursue being a professional musician full-time. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and a wave of other bands revolutionized the United Kingdom’s popular music industry. From 1963 to 1969, David played, wrote songs, recorded, learned to perform, and became “David Bowie.” A significant commercial breakthrough, however, eluded him.
• David Bowie is David Bowie showed us we could be who we wanted to be. In the 1970s he promoted individualism and freedom of sexuality, and over six decades he thrilled, surprised, and delighted audiences with incomparable sound and vision. His work continues to inspire artists, designers, musicians, and many followers with its distinctive persona and style. Bowie’s death in January 2016 shocked and saddened many millions of admirers. From the British prime minister and the president of the United States to the German government and the Vatican, the variety of tributes underlined Bowie’s influence and impact, and confirmed the extent to which he has permeated popular culture. This exhibition tells this story through costumes, film, photography, and set designs, as well as more personal items such as musical scores, storyboards, lyrics, and even diary entries. The exhibition reveals the breadth of Bowie’s influences and explores his creative processes and, in turn, his influence on our world. This exhibition has been organized by the V & A with unprecedented access to The David Bowie Archive. All objects are lent by The David Bowie Archive except where otherwise indicated.
• October 28, 2017 The Brooklyn Museum is proud to announce that it will be the final stop on the world tour of the critically acclaimed exhibition David Bowie is , organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The exhibition is the first retrospective of the extraordinary five-decade career of David Bowie—one of the most pioneering and influential performers of modern times. Curated by Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh from the Department of Theatre and Performance at the V&A, David Bowie is explores the creative process of an artist whose sustained reinventions, innovative collaborations, and bold characterizations revolutionized the way we see music, inspired people to shape their own identities while also challenging social traditions. On view from March 2 to July 15, 2018, David Bowie is will include never-before-seen objects and work exclusive to the Brooklyn Museum presentation. As the official audio partner of the exhibition, Sennheiser will be delivering a captivating audio experience through its AMBEO® 3D audio technology. Also, as in prior David Bowie is exhibitions around the world, the company’s technologies will be used for all audio elements throughout the exhibition— including its wireless systems, headphones and Neumann loudspeakers. The advanced sound technology, alongside theatrical scene–setting, animation and video, provide an immersive journey through the artistic influences that Bowie cited as formative. With unprecedented access to his personal archive, David Bowie is features more than 300 objects collected from his teenage years through his death in 2016— including handwritten lyrics, original costumes, photography, set designs, album artwork, and rare performance material. The Brooklyn presentation is organized by Matthew Yokobosky, Director of Exhibition Design, Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is made possible with the lead sponsorship of Spotify. “Since David Bowie is left the V&A, London in August 2013, nearly 1.8 million visitors have flocked to see the exhibition as it has travelled around the world, a testament to Bowie’s depth, breadth and worldwide reach and the public’s interest in the processes of creation behind such a uniquely influential performer. Bowie himself left England in 1974 to eventually settle in America, so we could not be more delighted that the final leg of the tour brings the show back to New York, where Bowie made his home,” Victoria Broackes, Curator, V&A. “With mainstream appeal and yet an avant-garde heart, David Bowie was one of the most original artists of our times. He challenged the status quo and continually took us on new musical explorations with his forward-thinking and groundbreaking presentations. David Bowie continues to be the apex for many artists in wide-ranging disciplines,” said Matthew Yokobosky, Director of Exhibition Design, Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition explores the broad range of Bowie’s collaborations with artists and designers in the fields of fashion, sound, graphics, theater, art, and film. On display are more than 60 stage costumes including Ziggy Stardust bodysuits (1972) designed by Freddie Burretti, Kansai Yamamoto’s flamboyant creations for the Aladdin Sane tour (1973), and the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and Alexander McQueen for the EART HL I NG album cover (1997). Also on show is photography by Brian Duffy, Terry O’Neill, and Masayoshi Sukita; album sleeve artwork by Guy Peellaert and Edward Bell; cover proofs by Barnbrook for the album The Next Day (2013); visual excerpts from films and live performances including The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and Saturday Night Live (1979); music videos such as Boys Keep Swinging (1979) and Let’s Dance (1983); and set designs created for the Diamond Dogs tour (1974). Alongside these are more personal items such as never-before-shown storyboards, handwritten set lists and lyrics as well as some of Bowie’s own sketches, musical scores, and diary entries, revealing the evolution of his creative ideas. “Music is a cultural force for good and I can think of few better examples than David Bowie as someone who has genuinely made the world a better and more interesting place through his unique talents in music, art and fashion,” said Troy Carter, Global Head of Creator Services at Spotify. “We are honored to partner with the Brooklyn Museum on this exhibition to celebrate the life of this great man.” About David Bowie is David Bowie is offers insight into Bowie’s early years and his first steps towards musical success. Tracing the creative aspirations of the young David Robert Jones (born 1947 in Brixton, London), it shows how he was inspired by innovations in art, theatre, music, technology, and youth culture in Britain in the aftermath of World War II. Pursuing a professional career in music and acting, he officially adopted the stage name “David Bowie” in 1965 and went through a series of self-styled changes from Mod to mime artist and folk singer to R&B musician in anticipation of the shifting nature of his later career. On display are early photographs, LPs from his musical heroes such as Little Richard, and Bowie’s sketches for stage sets and costumes created for his bands The Kon-rads and The King Bees in the 1960s. This opening section concludes with a focus on Bowie’s first major hit Space Oddity (1969) and the introduction of the fictional character Major Tom , who would be revisited by Bowie in both Ashes to Ashes (1980) and Hallo Spaceboy (1995). Inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey , the single was released to coincide with the first moon landing and was Bowie’s breakthrough moment, granting him critical and commercial success as an established solo artist. The exhibition moves on to examine David Bowie’s creative processes from song writing, recording, and producing to designing costumes, stage sets, and album artwork. As he worked within both established art forms and new artistic movements, this section reveals the scope of his inspirations and cultural references from Surrealism, Brechtian theater, and avant-garde mime to West End musicals, German Expressionism, and Japanese Kabuki performance. On view are some of Bowie’s own musical instruments, footage, and photography of recording sessions for Outside (1995) and Hours… (1999) as well as handwritten lyrics and word collages inspired by William Burroughs’ “cut up” method of writing that have never previously been publicly displayed. David Bowie is chronicles his innovative approach to creating albums and touring shows around fictionalized stage personas and narratives. 1972 marked the birth of his most famous creation: Ziggy Stardust , a human manifestation of an alien being. Ziggy’s daringly androgynous and otherworldly appearance has had a powerful and continuous influence on pop culture, signaling a challenge to social traditions and inspiring people to shape their own identities. On display is the original multi-colored suit worn for the pivotal performance of Starman on Top of the Pops in July 1972, as well as outfits designed for stage characters Aladdin Sane and The Thin White Duke . Costumes from The 1980 Floor Show (1973), album cover sleeves for The Man Who Sold the World (1970) and Hunky Dory (1971), alongside press cuttings and fan material, highlight Bowie’s fluid stylistic transformations and his impact on social mobility and gay liberation. There is also an area dedicated to the monochrome theatricality of Bowie’s Berlin period and the creation of the stylish Thin White Duke persona identified with the Station to Station album and Stage tour (1976). It also investigates the series of experimental and pioneering records he produced between 1977 and 1979 while living in Germany, known as the Berlin Trilogy . Several immersive audio-visual spaces present dramatic projections of some of Bowie’s most ambitious music videos including DJ (1979) and The Hearts Filthy Lesson (1995), as well as recently uncovered footage of Bowie performing Jean Genie on Top of the Pops in 1973 and D.A. Pennebaker’s film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture (1973). A separate screening room shows excerpts and props from Bowie’s feature films such as The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Labyrinth (1986) and Basquiat (1996). The final section celebrates David Bowie as a pioneering performer both on stage and in film, concentrating on key performances throughout his career. This gallery traces the evolution of the lavishly produced Diamond Dogs tour (1974), the design of which was inspired by Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927) and George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). The tour combined exuberant choreography by Toni Basil and a colossal set design, taking the combination of rock music and theater to new heights. On display are previously unseen storyboards and tour footage for the proposed musical that Bowie would eventually transform into the Diamond Dogs album and touring show. David Bowie is also includes a display of striking performance and fashion photographs taken by photographers including Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Mick Rock, and John Rowlands. David Bowie Archive Costumes, materials, and objects courtesy of the David Bowie Archive, with thanks to Archivist Sandra Hirshkowitz. Exhibition Publication The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated book edited by curators Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh. It is the first publication to draw in full from the David Bowie Archive and will be updated for the Brooklyn presentation. It features contributions from leading academics and experts in musicology and cultural history. Exhibition Merchandise The Brooklyn Museum Shop is offering a product range to complement the exhibition featuring limited edition of prints, books, fashion accessories, and t-shirts. About the Brooklyn Museum Founded in 1823 as the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library Association, the Brooklyn Museum contains one of the nation’s most comprehensive and wide-ranging collections enhanced by a distinguished record of exhibitions, scholarship, and service to the public. The Museum’s vast holdings span 5,000 years of human creativity from cultures in every corner of the globe. Collection highlights include the ancient Egyptian holdings, renowned for objects of the highest world-class quality, and the Arts of the Americas collection, which is unrivaled in its diverse range from pre-Columbian relics, Spanish colonial painting, and Native American art and artifacts, to 19th- and early 20th-century American painting, sculpture, and decorative objects. The Museum is also home to the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, which is dedicated to the study and exhibition of feminist art and is the only curatorial center of its kind. The Brooklyn Museum is both a leading cultural institution and a community museum dedicated to serving a wide-ranging audience. Located in the heart of Brooklyn, the Museum welcomes and celebrates the diversity of its home borough and city. Few, if any, museums in the country attract an audience as varied with respect to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational background, and age as the audience of the Brooklyn Museum. www.BrooklynMuseum.org About the V&A The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art and design with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity. It was established to make words of art available to all and to inspire British designers and manufacturers. Today, the V&A’s collections, which span over 5,000 years of human creativity in virtually every medium and from many parts of the world, continue to intrigue, inspire and inform. www.vam.ac.uk About Sennheiser Sennheiser is shaping the future of audio—a vision built on more than 70 years of innovation culture, which is deeply rooted within the company. Founded in 1945, Sennheiser remains family-owned and is today one of the world’s leading manufacturers of headphones, microphones and wireless transmission systems. With 20 sales subsidiaries and long-established trading partners, the company is active in more than 50 countries and operates its own production facilities in Germany, Ireland and the USA. Sennheiser has around 2,800 employees around the world that share a passion for audio. Since 2013, Sennheiser has been managed by Daniel Sennheiser and Dr. Andreas Sennheiser, the third generation of the family to run the company. In 2016, the Sennheiser Group had sales totaling 658.4 million. www.sennheiser.com About Spotify Spotify transformed music listening forever when it launched in Sweden in 2008. Our mission today remains the same: to help more people listen to more great songs by delivering the ultimate music experience to fans and artists across the globe. Everything we do is driven by our love for music. Discover, manage and share over 30m songs for free, or upgrade to Spotify Premium to access exclusive features including offline mode, improved sound quality, Spotify Connect and ad-free listening. Today, Spotify is the world’s most popular music streaming service with a community of over 140m users, including over 60m subscribers, across 61 markets. We are the largest driver of revenue to the music business today. David Bowie is is organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Sound experience provided by Sennheiser. Lead sponsorship for this exhibition is provided by Spotify. Generous support provided by BMW. Preferred Hotel Partner NU Hotel. Press Area of Website View Original
• February 4, 2018 As the final venue of the David Bowie is global, five-year tour, the Brooklyn Museum is proud to announce an extensive calendar of public programs that celebrate the late artist’s creative process and cultural impact. Programs will continue throughout the exhibition’s full run, from March 2 to July 15. Visit brooklynmuseum.org for more information and tickets. Make sure to follow @brooklynmuseum on Twitter and Facebook for programming updates. NOTE: Programs do not include admission to David Bowie is (visit brooklynmuseum.org to purchase tickets). Select public programs follow: Thursday, March 8, 7–9 pm Little Cinema Presents Basquiat Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Tickets are $16. Little Cinema presents an immersive screening of the biographical drama Basquiat (Julian Schnabel, 1996, 108 min.), featuring David Bowie as Andy Warhol. This film honors the legacy of two artistic legends, Jean- Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, and explores their relationship against the backdrop of the changing New York City art scene of the 1980s. The screening is layered with live performances by Brian Kelly and The Love Show, and live mixing by CHNNLS. Thursday, March 29, 7–9 pm The Bowie Songbook with Burnt Sugar Arkestra Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Tickets are $16. Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber pays tribute to David Bowie’s songbook with an evening of experimental covers. Bowie’s hits are reimagined through soul, jazz, and hip-hop by this landmark New York City group whose work bridges styles and genres to represent the breadth and depth of diasporic music in the twenty-first century. Wednesday, April 4, 7 pm Little Cinema Presents The Man Who Fell to Earth Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Tickets are $16. Little Cinema presents an immersive screening of the sci-fi masterpiece The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976, 139 min.), featuring Bowie in his acting debut as an alien who travels to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. Screening is layered with live music by members of Bowie’s recent band that worked on his last album, Blackstar (2016); live mixing by CHNNLS; and dance and choreography by Katherine Crockett. Thursday, April 5, 7–9 pm Brooklyn Talks : Tony Visconti Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Tickets start at $25. Legendary record producer, musician, and singer Tony Visconti shares stories from his forty-year creative partnership with David Bowie and his experience collaborating on the artist’s final album, Blackstar (2016). Saturday, April 7, 5–11 pm Target First Saturday with adidas Museum-wide Free. David Bowie’s former collaborators and contemporary Brooklyn artists honor Bowie’s legacy in an evening of live music, film, performance, conversation, and art-making activities. Friday, April 20, 5–7:30 pm Teen Night: Currents and Bolts Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion, 1st Floor Free and open to all teens 14+. Teens aged 14+ are invited to attend this free event that celebrates the groundbreaking cultural influence of David Bowie. Planned by the Museum’s Teen Night Planning Committee, it includes live music, performances, art-making, film, talks, and workshops. Friday, May 18, 8–11 pm SOLD OUT—Dance Party: Night of 1,000 Bowies Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion, 1st Floor Tickets start at $10. This event is now sold out. Wear your best David Bowie look to a dance party presented in partnership with Brooklyn-based music and art venue House of Yes and with Little Cinema. The evening includes DJs and live performances that celebrate the many faces of Bowie, and a Bowie-inspired makeup station and photo booth. Costumes are encouraged, but not required. Thursdays in June, 7–9 pm Film Series Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Tickets are $10 or all three for $25. June 7, The Hunger A 35th anniversary screening of The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983, 97 min.), featuring David Bowie as a rapidly aging vampire alongside costars Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve. June 14, Little Cinema Presents Labyrinth Little Cinema reimagines the cult classic Labyrinth (Jim Henson, 1986, 101 min.), featuring David Bowie as the Goblin King, in an immersive screening layered with live theatrical performances by artists, musicians, dancers, and circus performers. June 21, Velvet Goldmine A nod to 1970s glam rock, Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998, 118 min.) is a fictional drama that draws inspiration from the style and personas of David Bowie and his peers. Friday, June 8, 5–7 pm LGBTQ Teen Night Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion, 1st Floor Free and open to all LGBTQ+ teens and their allies, ages 14+. Planned by our LGBTQ Teen Night Planning Committee, this free evening invites LGBTQ+ teens and allies to explore work by artists who transcend gender, such as David Bowie, or those who reimagine a black, queer, femme art history, such as Mickalene Thomas. The event includes live music, performances, art-making, film, talks, and workshops. Thursday, June 28, 7 pm Music Video Night: David Bowie Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Tickets start at $10. Los Angeles media company Mass Appeal returns to the Brooklyn Museum to present an evening of classic Davie Bowie music videos. The evening closes with a conversation with acclaimed “Life on Mars” director Mick Rock. Saturday, July 14, 2 pm Closing Talk: David Bowie’s Legacy Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, 3rd Floor Tickets are $16. Join Daphne Brooks, Chief Curator of the symposium Blackstar Rising & The Purple Reign: Celebrating the Legacies of David Bowie and Prince , and Jack Halberstam, author of Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (2012), for a conversation on David Bowie’s legacy. As leading scholars in African American and gender studies, respectively, Brooks and Halberstam explore Bowie’s performance through an intersectional lens of race and gender. Press Area of Website View Original
• June 5, 2018 As the closing date for David Bowie is approaches, the Brooklyn Museum has announced two additional viewing days on Monday, July 9, and Tuesday, July 10, for the blockbuster exhibition’s final week. The exhibition, which closes July 15, is the fastest- and highest-selling exhibition in Brooklyn Museum history, and has welcomed more than 180,000 visitors since opening on March 2. Organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, David Bowie is is the first retrospective of the extraordinary five-decade career of David Bowie—one of the most pioneering and influential performers of modern times. The exhibition has been on tour for the past five years, traveling to eleven venues around the world with a final stop in Brooklyn. On June 20, the Brooklyn Museum expects to welcome the tour’s two millionth visitor. The special visitor will receive a surprise package, including a signed lithograph of a self-portrait by Bowie that was used on the Outside album cover, a limited edition of the David Bowie is book, a pair of Sennheiser headphones, and a premium subscription to Spotify. Find more information on David Bowie is at https://bit.ly/2gb0oL9 . The exhibition is curated by Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh from the Department of Theatre and Performance at the V&A. The Brooklyn presentation is organized by Matthew Yokobosky, Senior Curator, Fashion and Material Culture, Brooklyn Museum. Praise for David Bowie is “Electrifying…a far-reaching survey of [Bowie’s] artistry.” — The New York Times “Go. Just Go…It’s so good—comprehensive without being suffocating, beautifully installed, a feast for the senses—that the serious fan will likely want to see it more than once.” — Vogue “Stunning…it's impossible to walk more than a few inches without being dazzled.” — Rolling Stone About the Brooklyn Museum Founded in 1823 as the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library Association, the Brooklyn Museum contains one of the nation’s most comprehensive and wide-ranging collections, enhanced by a distinguished record of exhibitions, scholarship, and service to the public. The Museum’s vast holdings span 5,000 years of human creativity from cultures in every corner of the globe. Collection highlights include ancient Egyptian holdings renowned for objects of the highest quality, and the Arts of the Americas collection, which is unrivaled in its range from Native American art and artifacts and Spanish colonial painting to 19th- and early 20thcentury American painting, sculpture, and decorative objects. The Museum is also home to the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, which is dedicated to the study and exhibition of feminist art and is the only curatorial center of its kind. The Brooklyn Museum is both a leading cultural institution and a community museum dedicated to serving a wide-ranging audience. Located in the heart of Brooklyn, the Museum welcomes and celebrates the diversity of its home borough and city. Few, if any, museums in the country attract an audience as varied with respect to race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, educational background, and age as the Brooklyn Museum. www.brooklynmuseum.org . About the V&A The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art, design, and performance with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity. It was established to make the worlds of art available to all and to inspire British designers and manufacturers. Today, the V&A’s collections, which span over 5,000 years of human ingenuity in virtually every medium and from many parts of the world, continue to inspire the next generation and enrich everyone’s imagination. www.vam.ac.uk . About Sennheiser Sennheiser is shaping the future of audio—a vision built on more than 70 years of innovation culture, which is deeply rooted within the company. Founded in 1945, Sennheiser remains family-owned and is today one of the world’s leading manufacturers of headphones, microphones, and wireless transmission systems. With 20 sales subsidiaries and long-established trading partners, the company is active in more than 50 countries and operates its own production facilities in Germany, Ireland, and the USA. Sennheiser has around 2,800 employees around the world that share a passion for audio. Since 2013, Sennheiser has been managed by Daniel Sennheiser and Dr. Andreas Sennheiser, the third generation of the family to run the company. In 2016, the Sennheiser Group had sales totaling 658.4 million. www.sennheiser.com . About Spotify Spotify transformed music listening forever when it launched in Sweden in 2008. Our mission today remains the same: to help more people listen to more great songs by delivering the ultimate music experience to fans and artists across the globe. Everything we do is driven by our love for music. Discover, manage and share over 30m songs for free, or upgrade to Spotify Premium to access exclusive features including offline mode, improved sound quality, Spotify Connect and ad-free listening. Today, Spotify is the world’s most popular music streaming service with a community of over 140m users, including over 60m subscribers, across 61 markets. We are the largest driver of revenue to the music business today. Press Area of Website View Original

David Bowie Is

• Sep 23, 2014 – Jan 4, 2015

Album cover shoot for Aladdin Sane , 1973. Design: Brian Duffy and Celia Philo; make up: Pierre La Roche

Installation view, David Bowie Is , MCA Chicago, Sep 23, 2014–Jan 4, 2015

Striped bodysuit for Aladdin Sane tour, 1973. Design: Kansai Yamamoto

Original photography for the Earthling album cover, 1997. Union Jack coat design: Alexander McQueen in collaboration with David Bowie

The Archer , Station to Station tour, 1976

David Bowie during the filming of the Ashes to Ashes video, 1980

Quilted two-piece suit, 1972. Designed by Freddie Burretti for the Ziggy Stardust tour

Photo collage of manipulated film stills from The Man Who Fell to Earth , c. 1975–76. Design: David Bowie; film stills: David James.

Promotional photograph of David Bowie for Diamond Dogs , 1974

David Bowie, 1973

David Bowie, Original lyrics for Ziggy Stardust , 1972. Courtesy of the David Bowie Archive

Red platform boots for the 1973 Aladdin Sane tour. Courtesy of the David Bowie Archive

Original storyboards by David Bowie for the Ashes to Ashes video, 1980. Courtesy of the David Bowie Archive

David Bowie and William Burroughs, 1974. Photographer: Terry O'Neill; hand coloring: David Bowie. Courtesy of the David Bowie Archive 2012

Promotional shoot for The Kon-rads, 1966. Courtesy of The David Bowie Archive 2012

About the Exhibition

David Bowie Is presents the first retrospective of the extraordinary career of David Bowie—one of the most pioneering and influential performers of our time. More than 400 objects, most from the David Bowie Archive—including handwritten lyrics, original costumes, photography, set designs, album artwork, and rare performance material from the past five decades—are brought together for the first time.

Bowie's work has both influenced and been influenced by wider movements in art, design, theater, and contemporary culture, and the exhibition subsequently focuses on his creative processes, shifting style, and collaborative work with diverse designers in the fields of fashion, sound, graphics, theater, and film. Multimedia installations incorporating advanced sound technology produced by Sennheiser, original animations, continuous audio accompaniment, and video installations immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of Bowie's artistic life. David Bowie Is was organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and has embarked on an international tour with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago as the only US venue.

Organized chronologically, David Bowie Is traces the artist's evolution from his years as a teenager in the 1950s to the early 2000s when he retired from touring. Before the surprise release of the 2013 album The Next Day , Bowie had not released an album since Reality in 2003. On display are more than sixty stage costumes including the Ziggy Stardust bodysuits (1972), designed by Freddie Burretti; Kansai Yamamoto's flamboyant creations for the Aladdin Sane tour (1973) and the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and Alexander McQueen for the Earthling album cover (1997). Bowie's many personae are amply documented through photography, graphic designs, models of concert sets, visual excerpts from films, and live performances, including his starring role in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and his appearance on Saturday Night Live (1979), as well as music videos for songs such as “Boys Keep Swinging” (1979) and “Let's Dance” (1983). Alongside such prominent examples are more personal items such as never-before-seen storyboards, handwritten set lists and lyrics, and some of Bowie's own sketches, musical scores, and diary entries, which help reveal the evolution of his creative ideas. His chameleonic character transformations throughout the years are central to his contribution to contemporary culture and highly relevant to contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman , Wu Tsang, Janelle Monae, and Lady Gaga.

The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue edited by Victoria and Albert Museum curators Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh, which includes contributions from leading experts in musicology and cultural history and benefits from its reliance on and full access to the David Bowie Archive.

This exhibition is overseen in Chicago by Michael Darling , James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

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A David Bowie museum exhibit will display 80,000 pieces — including ones that ‘have never been seen in public before’

The legendary musician’s innovative style and creative methods will be on display at london’s victoria and albert museum.

By Margaret Darby

For the first time, more than 80,000 David Bowie items will be on display: iconic costumes, handwritten lyrics, letters, set designs and instruments are among the relics that will be presented for public show at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

“We are thrilled to announce that the exceptional archive of legend @DavidBowieReal is coming to the V&A!”, the museum shared on Twitter, along with a video highlighting Bowie’s life. “Spanning 80,000 items across his 60 year career, you can explore Bowie’s life’s work in ways never possible before.”

We are thrilled to announce that the exceptional archive of legend @DavidBowieReal is coming to the V&A! Spanning 80,000 items across his 60 year career, you can explore Bowie’s life’s work in ways never possible before at @vam_east Storehouse from 2025 #DavidBowieArchive pic.twitter.com/sTGtJnydKB — V&A (@V_and_A) February 23, 2023

What will be in the David Bowie museum exhibit?

The exhibition will feature Bowie’s creative process, his trajectory as an innovative musician and his impact as a cultural icon. It is scheduled to go public in 2025 at The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts at the V&A East Storehouse in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, according to a statement from the museum.

“David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time,” said Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. “Bowie’s radical innovations across music, theatre, film, fashion, and style — from Berlin to Tokyo to London — continue to influence design and visual culture and inspire creatives from Janelle Monáe to Lady Gaga to Tilda Swinton and Raf Simons.”

Display highlights include stage costumes such as Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust ensembles designed by Freddie Burretti, the eccentric creations from Kansai Yamamoto for Bowie’s Aladdin Sane tour and the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and Alexander McQueen featured on Bowie’s “Earthling” album cover, per the museum .

Fans will also get to see handwritten lyrics for songs such as “Fame” and “Heroes,” as well as intimate notebooks from every phase of the singer’s career and thousands of photographs and prints — most of which “have never been seen in public before.”

The museum will also feature examples of Bowie’s “cut up” songwriting process — a writing method in which he would slice up potential lyrics and rearrange them to find new meaning.

In 2013, the Victoria and Albert Museum featured a less-expansive Bowie collection called “David Bowie Is...” According to the museum , it was seen by over 2 million people and is one of the museum’s most popular exhibits of all time.

Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton, a friend and collaborator of Bowie’s, shared her thoughts on the museum.

“In 2013, the V&A’s David Bowie Is… exhibition gave us unquestionable evidence that Bowie is a spectacular example of an artist, who not only made unique and phenomenal work, but who has an influence and inspiration far beyond that work itself. Ten years later, the continuing regenerative nature of his spirit grows ever further in popular resonance and cultural reach down through younger generations,” Swinton wrote in the press release. “This is a truly great piece of news, which deserves the sincerest gratitude and congratulations to all those involved who have made it possible.”

David Bowie is

David bowie is all around us, david bowie est tout autour de nous..

David Bowie’s contributions to music and performance are milestones of our era. Whether performing glam rock, funk, soul, disco or dance music, he has made each genre his own. He has always been fascinated by the avant-garde and from Major Tom to Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane to Halloween Jack, he has reinvented and metamorphosed, putting his body on show as an actual performance, always one step ahead of the curve. In London, New York, via Berlin and Paris: shaking up the old world and resisting constraints, his musical geography has anticipated and traversed the artistic evolutions of our recent history.

This is the rich and fascinating journey that the exhibition charts.

David Bowie is a face in the crowd

David bowie est un visage dans la foule.

By his teens, David Bowie is fascinated by pop-music, American culture and style. He starts playing in local bands but after leaving school at 16 in 1963, he goes to work in a Mayfair advertising agency. He leaves after a year to be a professional musician.

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and a wave of other bands are revolutionising the UK’s popular music industry. From 1963 to 1969 David plays, writes songs, records, learns to act and becomes « David Bowie », but fails to make a significant commercial breakthrough.

David Bowie is floating in a most peculiar way

David bowie plane d’une façon particulièrement étrange, breakthrough.

January 1969: newspapers print the first colour photographs of the Earth from space. Bowie writes, ‘Planet Earth is blue / And there’s nothing I can do’ , a new song about an astronaut alone in space. He calls it ‘Space Oddity’ – a pun on Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The single is released in July, shortly before the launch of the Apollo 11 moon mission. On 20 July, the BBC plays it over footage of the moon landing, ‘Ground Control to Major Tom / Your circuit’s dead / There’s something wrong’. A strange choice? But what a song. ‘Space Oddity’ goes to No.5 in the UK charts by October. ‘Bowie’ is, at last, breaking through.

David Bowie is thinking about a world to come

David bowie songe à un monde à venir, astronaut of inner space.

Beaming into homes through television sets across Britain, blowing the minds of teenagers and their parents, red-booted, red-haired, red-blooded, jumpsuit-clad Bowie sings ‘Starman’ on Top of the Pops . No one has ever seen anything like it before. Is he a boy or a girl? Is he from Earth or Outer Space?

David Bowie is using machine age knife magic

David bowie est un adepte du cut-up, creative influences.

Bowie’s energy in seeking out new ideas, and his skill in filtering them to find exactly what he needs, is a major contributor to his success. Unlike many stars, he never bows to the expectations of the record company or sticks to a winning formula. For Bowie, that’s the moment to move on to something else.

Bowie was fascinated by the dystopian story of an underclass controlled by the state in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . In 1973, he tried to get permission to make a musical of the story. He was denied the rights, and instead developed his own tale of violent youths (the ‘Diamond Dogs’) roaming a post-apocalyptic ‘Hunger City’. The resulting stage show was spectacular and a breakthrough in rock theatre.

David Bowie is never at a loss for words or poses

David bowie n’est jamais à court de mots ou de poses, song creation.

Songwriting for Bowie is part of a creative process that integrates words, music, production and imagery. In the ’70s, he becomes fascinated by chance as a catalyst for creativity. Alongside conventional songwriting methods, he uses ‘cut-up’ techniques and, in the ’90s, a random word generator. ‘I like the idea that [the lyrics are] vehicles for other people to interpret or use as they will’

Bowie developed his own form of the cut-up technique in the ’70s describing it as ‘a tool of writing to promote a new perspective’.

David Bowie is taking advantage of what the moment offers

David bowie tire profit de ce que le moment a à offrir, collaboration.

Bowie personally controls his body of work, from his music and album covers, costumes and stage sets, through to the merchandise on sale on his tours. To realise his vision, he works with choreographers, artists, photographers, designers, fashion designers, set and lighting designers, as well as musicians and producers. He actively seeks out collaborators, mainstream or avant-garde, famous or unknown, and shows a particular talent in finding the right voice to express what he wants to say. What doesn’t work, he leaves out. In choosing collaborators who share his creative vision, Bowie rarely puts a foot wrong.

David Bowie is making himself up

David bowie se maquille.

In 1967, aged 20, Bowie discovers the stage and the possibilities of delivering his ideas through the creation of extraordinary characters. He creates and he borrows – Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, the Thin White Duke, detective Nathan Adler, the Minotaur.

David Bowie is a picture of the future

David bowie est une image du futur, music videos.

Musicians start making promotional films long before the ‘video age’ begins with the launch of MTV in 1981. In the ’60s, The Beatles and the Stones are among the first to make them an extension of their art, not just a marketing device. Bowie’s first successful, still astounding, film ‘Life on Mars?’ is released in 1973: Ziggy appears against a white studio like a turquoise vision of the future.

David Bowie is wearing many masks

David bowie porte de nombreux masques, stage and screen.

In Bowie’s lifetime, the actor, as an idol of popular adulation, is replaced by the pop star. Bowie is a part of that change: between 1967 and ’68 he trains with actor and mime artist Lindsay Kemp and auditions for films and shows. He plays a characteristically eclectic cast of characters, Andy Warhol, Pontius Pilate, the Goblin King, often preferring the cutting edge over the mainstream…

In The Man Who Fells To Earth, Bowie plays the character of Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien who comes to Earth in search of water for his dying planet. Bowie’s artwork gives a surreal twist to these film stills, originally taken by David James. The bath is ‘paved in’ and two images have been combined to create a disjunction between Bowie’s head and his reflection.

David Bowie is where we are now

David bowie est où nous sommes maintenant.

David Bowie is a musician, a performer, a radical, an artist and an inspiration. He channels avant-garde influences into music and performances with mass appeal, and has an uncanny ability to anticipate and define the direction of popular culture. He understands his audience, but by taking bold and unpredictable steps, he guards his artistic integrity. For thousands, he is a conduit for new ideas and a visionary icon.

V&A Museum to open the David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts

The space will chart his creative process and feature never-before-seen archival pieces

Within this, more than 80,000 items – spanning six decades of Bowie's iconic career – will be made public for the first time. The creation of the new centre will provide an intimate window into his self-expression and thought processes, from the start of his career in the 1960s until his death in 2016.

Bowie is widely considered one of the most influential figures of all time in music, film and fashion. This collection will include handwritten lyrics (for songs like Fame and Ashes to Ashes) , personal letters, sheet music, original costumes, fashion, set designs, his own instruments, awards and unreleased projects.

Dr Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, said in a statement: "The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive and to be able to open it up for the public. Bowie’s radical innovations across music, theatre, film, fashion, and style – from Berlin to Tokyo to London – continue to influence design and visual culture and inspire creatives from Janelle Monáe to Lady Gaga to Tilda Swinton and Raf Simons.

"Our new collections centre, V&A East Storehouse, is the ideal place to put Bowie’s work in dialogue with the V&A’s collection spanning 5,000 years of art, design, and performance. My deepest thanks go to the David Bowie Estate, Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group for helping make this a reality and for providing a new sourcebook for the Bowies of tomorrow."

Some of Bowie's most memorable looks will go on display, including his Ziggy Stardust ensembles, designed by Freddie Burretti in 1972; his Union Jack coat, designed alongside Alexander McQueen for the Earthling 1997 album cover; and Dansai Yamamoto's vibrant creations for the 1973 Aladdin Sane tour.

Tilda Swinton, one of Bowie’s friends and collaborators, explained how important carrying on his legacy is for inspiring the next generation of creatives.

"The continuing regenerative nature of his spirit grows ever further in popular resonance and cultural reach down through younger generations," says Swindon. "In acquiring his archive for posterity, the V&A will now be able to offer access to David Bowie’s history – and the portal it represents – not only to practising artists from all fields, but to every last one of us, and for the foreseeable future."

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David Bowie: V&A Museum to open permanent exhibit on pop legend, with archive of 80,000 items in east London

From ziggy's space-age outfit to brian eno's synthesiser - a huge collection related to the cultural icon will be housed in a permanent exhibition in east london, for fans and academics alike.

Students will study for a PhD in Ziggy Stardust when a major museum housing an extensive archive of David Bowie’s life, work and legacy opens in London.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has announced it has acquired “for the nation” more than 80,000 items spanning six decades of the cultural icon’s career.

They will be made available to the public through the creation of The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts, which will open in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, in 2025.

It will allow fans and researchers alike to get up close and gain new insights like never before into the creative process of an artist famed for adopting different personas, the V&A said.

Highlights include stage costumes such as Bowie’s breakthrough Ziggy Stardust ensembles, designed by Freddie Burretti in 1972; Kansai Yamamoto’s creations for the Aladdin Sane tour in 1973; and the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and Alexander McQueen for the 1997 Earthling album cover.

The archive includes over 70,000 photographs, prints, negatives, slides and contact sheets taken by some of the 20th century’s leading photographers from Terry O’Neill to Brian Duffy to Helmut Newton.

Fans will see Brian Eno’s EMS Synthesizer used on Bowie’s seminal Low (1977) and “Heroes” albums, and a Stylophone – a gift from Marc Bolan in the late 60s used on Bowie’s breakthrough “Space Oddity” recording.

Handwritten lyrics, letters, sheet music, photography, film, music videos, set designs, album artwork and awards are stored in the archive. It also includes more intimate writings, thought processes and unrealised projects, the majority of which have never been seen in public before.

The acquisition highlights how rock and pop legends are increasingly seen as suitable subjects for academic study.

Last year the Bob Dylan Center, a museum dedicated to the singer-songwriter, opened in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Researchers can apply to study Dylan’s handwritten draft lyrics and concert performances stored in a vast archive donated by the performer.

However, the creation of a permanent museum to house the Bowie legend, six years after his death, is ironic. Collaborators noted how the “musical chameleon” refused the nostalgic temptation to look back at past glories and was always concerned with breaking new ground.

The V&A said the acquisition and creation of the centre has been “made possible thanks to the David Bowie Estate and a generous donation of £10m from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group.”

Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, said: “David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time. The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive, and to be able to open it up for the public.

“Bowie’s radical innovations across music, theatre, film, fashion, and style – from Berlin to Tokyo to London – continue to influence design and visual culture and inspire creatives from Janelle Monae to Lady Gaga to Tilda Swinton and Raf Simons.”

A spokesperson from the David Bowie Estate added: “With David’s life’s work becoming part of the UK’s national collections, he takes his rightful place amongst many other cultural icons and artistic geniuses.

“The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performance – and the behind the scenes access that V and A East Storehouse offers – will mean David’s work can be shared with the public in ways that haven’t been possible before.”

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DAVID BOWIE – A LONDON DAY

14 march 11:00 - 18:00.

A new exhibition of photographs by Kevin Davies

The Fitzrovia Chapel is proud to announce a new exhibition of photographs title DAVID BOWIE – A LONDON DAY by Kevin Davies , capturing David Bowie over the course of a single day in 1992, which will open on 1st March and run until 20th March 2024 as part of The Fitzrovia Chapel’s Cultural Programme.

DAVID BOWIE – A LONDON DAY is curated by journalist, author, cultural historian and Bowie fan, Dylan Jones .

In late 1992, David Bowie was preparing for the release of his 18th studio album Black Tie White Noise. Photographer Kevin Davies was commissioned to photograph Bowie for a series of images which would be used to promote the album. The session took place at a studio space in Clerkenwell on Sunday 13th December 1992, with a selection of images subsequently approved by Bowie for press use, after which Davies placed the original rolls of film, contact sheets and prints in storage where they stayed for almost 30 years.

In 2020, Davies uncovered the boxes to reveal perfectly preserved film negatives of 400+ images from that single day with Bowie, the details of which had been eclipsed by the indistinguishable memory of a luminous presence. The original collection of 450 images captured a then 45-year-old David Bowie styled for Black Tie White Noise, plus a series shot late in the day when Davies asked to capture Bowie “just as you are.”

The exhibition features 20 photographs from across the day with selected images presented as diptychs and triptychs to explore a meditation on the photographic archive. This exhibition takes Bowie as its subject, but it is equally a representation of the afterlife of analogue photography. It explores the intersection of the archive and creative remembrance. The collection is built around a number of Bowie’s own selects taken from his mark-ups on Davies’ original contact sheets and reveals a timeless, almost age-less David Bowie in the prime of his life.

Kevin Davies said – “In the anxiety of COVID 19 lockdown I found comfort in retracing my career through stored away negative boxes. I finally had the opportunity to do something I had wanted to do for such a long time; rediscovering past jobs in their totality. For me, this exhibition is a chance to show the photographic process beyond a commission.”

Curator Dylan Jones said – “This is a fascinating body of work as it’s a visual narrative that takes place over the course of a single session on a single day. Not only does it show David Bowie’s extraordinary attention to detail, but it also shows Kevin Davies’ ability to shape and catalogue that narrative. I love these pictures.”

A tranquil world of art, fashion and history, The Fitzrovia Chapel has long existed as a place of calm and contemplation in Central London. The Chapel is a space where people can step out of the everyday hustle to explore and examine not only the visiting works of art, but also the beauty and detail of the Chapel itself.

Madeleine Boomgaarden, Director of The Fitzrovia Chapel said “These quietly observed and very beautiful images of Bowie sit perfectly in the calm elegance of the chapel. We’re delighted to host images of this London icon in the heart of the city he grew up in.”

DAVID BOWIE – A LONDON DAY by Kevin Davies will open to the public on 1st March 2024 and run until 20th March 2024 at the Fitzrovia Chapel.

A private press viewing will take place on 29th February.

Exhibition opening times are: Tuesday to Saturday: 11am – 6pm Sundays: 12 noon – 5pm Mondays: Closed

Photos credit: David Bowie © Kevin Davies 1992

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London to get free, permanent David Bowie display as Victoria and Albert Museum acquires archive

Costumes, albums, lyrics and videos from 80,000-strong collection will go on show at the v&a east storehouse from 2025.

Left: David Bowie in a striped bodysuit designed by Kansai Yamamotofor the Aladdin Sane tour (1973). Right: David Bowie's self-portrait in a pose also adopted for the album cover of Heroes (1978) Photo: Masayoshi Sukita; © Sukita and The David Bowie Archive. Drawing: © The David Bowie Archive

Ground control to the V&A: The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has secured the archive of the late cultural icon David Bowie, giving fans of the Thin White Duke the chance to get up close to the singer’s Ziggy Stardust costume ensembles, album artwork, set designs and sheet music. Bowie died 10 January 2016, aged 69.

From 2025, the 80,000-strong archive will be housed and available at the V&A’s new site—the V&A East Storehouse in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park —in a dedicated space called The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts. The Bowie archive will be free to view. “The archive [also] holds a series of intimate notebooks from every era of Bowie’s life and career,” a V&A statement says.

A quilted two-piece suit designed by Freddie Burretti for the Ziggy Stardust tour (1972) © The David Bowie Archive

The Blavatnik Family Foundation, established by the British-American businessman Leonard Blavatnik, and the Warner Music Group donated £10m towards the project. “The donation will help us to catalogue the collection and create the centre,” Kate Bailey, the senior curator for theatre and performance at the V&A, tells The Art Newspaper. The David Bowie estate also played a key role, greenlighting the acquisition of the vast archive.

Ch… ch… ch… ch… changes at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Fellow rock stars welcomed the move. The musician Nile Rodgers, co-founder of the group Chic, says in a statement: “I believe everyone will agree with me when I say that when I look back at the last 60 years of post-Beatles music that if only one artist could be in the V&A it should be David Bowie. He didn’t just make art, he was art!”

A photograph of David Bowie performing as The Thin White Duke on the Station to Station tour (1976) Photo: John Robert Rowlands; © John Robert Rowlands and The David Bowie Archive

“What is exciting is that this is a collection and archive from across Bowie’s entire artistic career. He lived his life as art and his life is archived as art. So many current artists look to Bowie; he really was liberating,” Bailey adds.

“There are some fascinating items. We can see how Bowie wrote lyrics, how he sketched his own costumes. There is a Stylophone from Marc Bolan which Bowie used on his Space Oddity recording,” Bailey says. The archive also includes instantly recognisable costumes such as Kansai Yamamoto’s designs for the Aladdin Sane tour (1973) and the Union Jack coat designed by Bowie and the late designer Alexander McQueen for the Earthling album cover (1997).

Cut up lyrics for "Blackout" from Heroes (1977) by David Bowie © The David Bowie Archive

“The Bowie archive in context of the V&A’s broader collection is fascinating, fitting with our remit of art, design and performance. V&A East is about global creativity and inspiring the next generation of practitioners,” Bailey adds.

The V&A’s David Bowie Is exhibition opened in 2013 and included original album art, photographs, and videos drawn from the Bowie archive. T he show was one of the most visited travelling shows in the history of the museum, going on a ten-stop tour from 2017, drawing 194,000 visitors at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and 200,000 visitors at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne.

David Bowie

The V&A holds a unique collection of David Bowie photographs, album sleeve artwork and memorabilia, charting the creative process of one of the most pioneering and influential performers of modern times.

Tracing Bowie’s shifting style and sustained reinvention across five decades, highlights include artwork for the Diamond Dogs album, iconic photographs by Kevin Cummins and Terry O’Neill, and a set design for Bowie’s successful Serious Moonlight tour. The collection features several collaborations with artists and designers, demonstrating how Bowie’s work was influenced by and also influenced wider movements in art, design, theatre and contemporary culture.

Explore the Collections

Collection highlights

David Bowie: Images of an Icon

A chameleonic figure, Bowie periodically reinvented himself, creating on-stage personas such as Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke

David Bowie artistic collaborations

David Bowie was an artist who didn’t fear the talent of other artists, but instead drew energy and inspiration from their work

Fashion in Motion: Kansai Yamamoto

Kansai Yamamoto presented new and archive pieces spanning his four decade career, including recreations of his designs worn by David Bowie

Shop the official range inspired by the ‘David Bowie is’ exhibition – including books, exclusive prints, t-shirts, postcards and accessories

Background image: Photograph of David Bowie, Kevin Cummins, 1970s, Uk. Museum no: S.1326-2010. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Moscow Metro Tour

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Description

Moscow metro private tours.

• 2-hour tour $87:  10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off
• 3-hour tour $137:  20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. 
• Metro pass is included in the price of both tours.

Highlight of Metro Tour

• Visit 10 must-see stations of Moscow metro on 2-hr tour and 20 Metro stations on 3-hr tour, including grand Komsomolskaya station with its distinctive Baroque décor, aristocratic Mayakovskaya station with Soviet mosaics, legendary Revolution Square station with 72 bronze sculptures and more!
• Explore Museum of Moscow Metro and learn a ton of technical and historical facts;
• Listen to the secrets about the Metro-2, a secret line supposedly used by the government and KGB;
• Experience a selection of most striking features of Moscow Metro hidden from most tourists and even locals;
• Discover the underground treasure of Russian Soviet past – from mosaics to bronzes, paintings, marble arches, stained glass and even paleontological elements;
• Learn fun stories and myths about Coffee Ring, Zodiac signs of Moscow Metro and more;
• Admire Soviet-era architecture of pre- and post- World War II perious;
• Enjoy panoramic views of Sparrow Hills from Luzhniki Metro Bridge – MetroMost, the only station of Moscow Metro located over water and the highest station above ground level;
• If lucky, catch a unique «Aquarelle Train» – a wheeled picture gallery, brightly painted with images of peony, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers and each car unit is unique;
• Become an expert at navigating the legendary Moscow Metro system;
• Have fun time with a very friendly local;
• + Atmospheric Metro lunch in Moscow’s the only Metro Diner (included in a 3-hr tour)

Hotel Pick-up

Metro stations:.

Komsomolskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Prospekt Mira

Belorusskaya

Mayakovskaya

Novokuznetskaya

Revolution Square

Sparrow Hills

+ for 3-hour tour

Victory Park

Slavic Boulevard

Vystavochnaya

Dostoevskaya

Elektrozavodskaya

Partizanskaya

Museum of Moscow Metro

• Drop-off  at your hotel, Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills or any place you wish
• + Russian lunch  in Metro Diner with artistic metro-style interior for 3-hour tour

Fun facts from our Moscow Metro Tours:

From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Metro was the object of civil defense, used as a bomb shelter, and designed as a defense for a possible attack on the Soviet Union.

At a depth of 50 to 120 meters lies the second, the coded system of Metro-2 of Moscow subway, which is equipped with everything you need, from food storage to the nuclear button.

According to some sources, the total length of Metro-2 reaches over 150 kilometers.

The Museum was opened on Sportivnaya metro station on November 6, 1967. It features the most interesting models of trains and stations.

Coffee Ring

The first scheme of Moscow Metro looked like a bunch of separate lines. Listen to a myth about Joseph Stalin and the main brown line of Moscow Metro.

Zodiac Metro

According to some astrologers, each of the 12 stops of the Moscow Ring Line corresponds to a particular sign of the zodiac and divides the city into astrological sector.

Astrologers believe that being in a particular zadiac sector of Moscow for a long time, you attract certain energy and events into your life.

Paleontological finds 

Red marble walls of some of the Metro stations hide in themselves petrified inhabitants of ancient seas. Try and find some!

• Every day each car in  Moscow metro passes  more than 600 km, which is the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
• Moscow subway system is the  5th in the intensity  of use (after the subways of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai).
• The interval in the movement of trains in rush hour is  90 seconds .

What you get:

• + A friend in Moscow.
• + Private & customized Moscow tour.
• + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
• + An authentic experience of local life.
• + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
• + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
• + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
• + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
• + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

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The Japanese gown uniting Freddie Mercury, the Jedi and Bjork

Freddie Mercury adored them and collected them as he travelled across Japan on tour.

George Lucas put them at the heart of every costume in the Star Wars franchise and they were the favoured backstage dress of Boy George and David Bowie.

Now, a collection of Kimono owned by some of entertainment’s most influential personalities has gone on display at an exhibition in Dundee .

Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk charts the history of the traditional Japanese dress from its far east origins to the garment’s place in contemporary fashion.

More than 300 artefacts, including a collection of the gowns owned and worn by the Queen front man, are featured in the showcase at the V&A until January.

The show, which originally opened in London in January, shines a light on their cultural impact in the West – including those in a galaxy far, far away.

“You see kimono as being distinctly Japanese, but they also have this universal timeless quality,” said Anna Jackson, curator of the exhibition .

“George Lucas was very much inspired by the films of Kurosawa, and at one point it’s believed he considered offering the role of Obi Wan Kenobi to the veteran actor Toshiro Mifune who appeared in Sanjuro.

“Mifune didn’t speak English and didn’t think it appropriate so the part went to Alec Guinness but the costumes, part Samurai and part Buddhist monk were inspired by the simple shape of the kimono and I believe the actors referred to them as that, so they knew exactly what they were wearing.”

Mifune’s Jedi-inspiring stage costume and Mercury’s favourite cherry blossom gown are among the exhibits on display.

The show has been expanded since its London outing for the final stop on its tour.

One of the additions is the oldest surviving Japanese robe in the UK. It belonged to Sir James Dalrymple who added his own family crest to the design, and like many writers and politicians, used his kimono as a house coat or dressing gown when entertaining guests at his home in Newhailes House in Musselburgh in the early 18th century.

“It was made in Japan, came to the Netherlands and ended up in Scotland, so it speaks to this amazing cross-cultural connection between Japan and Scotland which stretched back centuries,” said Kirsty Hassard, V&A Dundee curator.

Another kimono from the 1920s features a distinctive rose and lattice pattern which echoes the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

“We know Mackintosh didn’t visit Japan but was hugely inspired by what he saw in books,” says Kirsty.

“And we think these designers were doing the same, on the other side of the world.”

Ms Jackson believes the versatility of kimono is what makes it so enduring. It can be adapted to any shape or size and worn by men or women.

In the late 19th century, there was a worldwide craze for Japanese art and design and women started to wear the gowns.

“Kimono were exported in large numbers and although you could see it as a sort of cultural appropriation wearing a garment from a country you didn’t really understand, it was also liberating for women who’d been used to wearing corsets,” she said.

It was also associated with Bohemianism. The 19th century actress Ellen Terry wore a kimono backstage, when greeting guests in her dressing room.

Alexander McQueen helped Bjork create the iconic cover of her 1997 album Homogenic and the film Memoirs of a Geisha fostered even more interest in the garment, while they were also a favourite of the German-American actress and singer Marlene Dietrich.

“Freddie Mercury had hundreds of kimono, some of which he wore on stage, but some he wore at home like the one we have in the show. For him it was a way of transcending cultural identity but also sexual identity,” Ms Jackson said.

Far from being a traditional unchanging garment, the kimono has continued to evolve, and is enjoying a revival on the streets of Japan thanks to a new generation of contemporary designers and stylists.

Here in the UK, it has been a fixture of fashion for more than a century, and the trend continues on the catwalk and at music festivals.

Although the show hasn’t been made in-house, it’s an important one for V&A Dundee, which was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma in 2018.

“It’s lovely to be hosting it,” said Leonie Bell, director of V&A Dundee

“We feel like we’re a little bit of Japan by the banks of the Tay.”

V&A Dundee has faced a number of challenges in its short existence, but they’re keen to face them head on, and they believe this ticketed show, on the back of last year’s Tartan exhibition will help enormously.

“We’re looking at a global tour of Tartan. That was game changing for us at the V&A,” said Ms Bell.

“The thought of seeing it go round the world, and follow it with Kimono feels good. It feels like a demonstration, not just of what V&A Dundee can do, not just what Dundee can do, but what the whole cultural sector in Scotland can do.”

• Dundee Tapestry: Labour of love to city unveiled
• In pictures: How V&A Dundee took shape
• Dundee through the lens of a 20,000 photo collage

Moscow Metro Underground Small-Group Tour - With Reviews & Ratings

Moscow metro underground small-group tour.

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Tour Information

Key Details

• Mobile Voucher Accepted
• Free Cancellation
• Duration: 3 Hrs
• Language: English
• Departure Time : 10:00 AM
• Departure Details : Karl Marks Monument on Revolution Square, metro stop: Square of Revolution
• Return Details : Metro Smolenskaya
• If you cancel at least 4 day(s) in advance of the scheduled departure, there is no cancellation fee.
• If you cancel within 3 day(s) of the scheduled departure, there is a 100 percent cancellation fee.
• Tours booked using discount coupon codes will be non refundable.

Go beneath the streets on this tour of the spectacular, mind-bending Moscow Metro! Be awed by architecture and spot the Propaganda , then hear soviet stories from a local in the know. Finish it all up above ground, looking up to Stalins skyscrapers, and get the inside scoop on whats gone on behind those walls.

Know More about this tour

We begin our Moscow tour beneath the city, exploring the underground palace of the Moscow Metro. From the Square of Revolution station, famous for its huge statues of soviet people (an armed soldier, a farmer with a rooster, a warrior, and more), we’ll move onto some of the most significant stations, where impressive mosaics, columns, and chandeliers will boggle your eyes! Moreover, these stations reveal a big part of soviet reality — the walls depict plenty of Propaganda , with party leaders looking down from images on the walls. Your local guide will share personal stories of his/her family from USSR times, giving you insight into Russia’s complicated past and present. Then we’re coming back up to street level, where we’ll take a break and refuel with some Russian fast food: traditional pancakes, called bliny. And then, stomachs satiated, we are ready to move forward! We’ll take the eco-friendly electric trolleybus, with a route along the Moscow Garden Ring. Used mainly by Russian babushkas(grannies) during the day, the trolleybus hits peak hours in the mornings and evenings, when many locals use it going to and from their days. Our first stop will be the Aviator’s House, one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters, followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — and you’ll hear the legends of what has gone on inside the walls. Throughout your Moscow tour, you’ll learn curious facts from soviet history while seeing how Russia exists now, 25 years after the USSR.

Local English-speaking guide

Pancake snack and drink

Additional food and drinks

Tickets for public transport

Souvenirs and items of a personal nature

Tips and gratuities for the guide

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking

Dress standard: Please wear comfortable shoes for walking. For your Urban Adventure you will be in a small group of a maximum of 12 people

Traveler Reviews

This tour exceeded our expectations. Nikolai (Nick), our tour guide, was very knowledgeable, thorough, and has a great personality. He didn't take shortcuts and really covered everything that was on the agenda in great detail. We saw beautiful metro stations and learned the history behind them, including many of the murals and designs.

We did the tour with Anna her knowledge and understanding of the History surrounding the metro brought the tour alive. Well done Anna!

This tour was amazing!

Anna was a great tour guide. She gave us heaps of interesting information, was very friendly, and very kindly showed us how to get to our next tour.

Amazing beauty and history.

An excellent tour helped by an absolutely amazing guide. Anna gave a great insight into the history of the metro helped by additional material she had prepared.

great tour and guide - thanks again

great will do it again, Miriam ke was very good as a guide she has lived here all here life so knew every interesting detail.a good day

Tour Details

Moscow metro tour: architectural styles of the subway.

Duration: 2 hours

Categories: Culture & History, Sightseeing

This metro tour of Russia’s capital and most populous city, Moscow, is your chance to get a unique insight into the beautiful and impressive architecture of the city's underground stations. Admire their marble walls and high ceilings representing Stalin's desire for glory after World War 2, and see first-hand how the interiors change with the rise of new political eras. Your guide will lead you through the complex network, which is one of the most heavily used rapid transit systems worldwide, with over two billion travelers in 2011.

Opened in 1935, Moscow’s underground system, now 190 miles (305 km) long with 185 stations, is today one the largest and most heavily used rapid transit systems in the world. On this Moscow metro tour, discover the impressive architecture of Moscow’s underground stations and learn how they reflect the Soviet era.

Getting around by metro, your local guide will take you through parts of Moscow’s infamous history. Stop at stations built during the time of the USSR (Soviet Union) that are praised as one of the most extravagant architectural projects from Stalin’s time. After World War 2, he was keen on establishing Stalinist architecture to represent his rising regime and a recognized empire. Learn how when his successor started the de-Stalinization of the former Soviet Union in 1953, the extravagancy of the architecture was toned down.

Discover how the unique character of each station reflected several different eras. While stations like Kievskaya and Slavyansky Bulvar have pompous halls and high stucco ceilings brimming with extravagant decorations, those built later, like Volzhskaya, are lightly adorned with sparse furnishings. Architect Alexey Dushkin and painter Alexander Deyneka were just two of the many artists who made these magnificent landmarks possible.

Revel in Moscow's glory days, as well as the years of scarcity, on this fascinating Moscow metro experience. Conclude your tour at one of the central stations in Moscow. If you're lucky, you may even find the secret entrance to the unconfirmed Metro-2, a parallel underground system used by the government -- a mystery which has neither been denied nor confirmed today.

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Culture Shock Rating

We have a wide range of tours designed to give you an insight into the destination you're travelling in and there is something for everybody. The culture shock ratings considers the destination visited, transport used, activities undertaken and that "Wow, I'm really not at home now!" factor. While generalisations are always tricky, a summary of our gradings is as follows…

This is the least confronting of our tour range. Transport used on the trip is either private or a very comfortable public option, the activities included are usually iconic sites and locations that are not all too confronting.

The tour can include a mix of private and public transport providing a level of comfort that is slightly below what you would experience at home. Sites visited are usually iconic sites, tours can also include market visits, visits to communities etc that provide the traveller with a fantastic insight into destination.

Expect to rough it for parts of this tour, whether it's a packed public bus where you are forced to stand, a visit to a local market, a local community, you are sure to have an experience that is very different from what you're used to at home.

The comforts of your home town and the environment you are used to are more of a rarity. Expect some challenging transport options, visits to local sites and areas that don't resemble anything at home.

You're out there in the global community! You are likely to be exposed to the elements, travel in whatever means of transport is available and basically take it as it comes, whatever comes! It can be tough.

Physical Rating

Our physical rating gives you an idea of how much huffing and puffing you can expect on the tour. While generalisations are always tricky, a summary of our gradings is as follows…

These tours have very limited physical activity. Usually climbing in and out of the transport provided, walking through sites, markets etc included in the itinerary.

These tours have a bit of physical activity but nothing that should challenge you too much. This could be climbing on and off public transport through to a walk through the destination you're travelling in, they can include walking only tours or a combination of walking and transport.

These tours involve a bit of physical activity from walking up and down hills in the destination you're travelling in or the surrounding areas. Climbing on and off local transport or riding a bike up to 30 kms along predominantly flat terrain or jumping in a kayak for a gentle paddle on flat water.

These Tours will provide you with some solid physical activity. Whether its bike riding, walking, trekking, kayaking or riding on public transport you will need to have a good level of fitness to enjoy this tour.

Be prepared for some serious physical activity. These tours are our most challenging and involve some serious walking, hiking or bike riding. Can involve step climbs by foot or pedal and some challenging public transport options in the destination you are travelling.

Luxury Rating

Some trips are like a stroll on the beach, while others have you trekking alpine passes. Some of you thrive on camping out on the savannah, while others may prefer a hot shower and a comfortable bed in a lodge. Follow the grading systems below to find the right trip for you.

To help you choose the trip that's right for you, we've broken all of our trips down into four service levels. Measuring the comfort level of the accommodation and transport. So whether you're travelling on a budget and want to save money by using public transport, or prefer upgraded accommodation and are happy to pay a little more, then we have a level for you.

This is grassroots travel at its most interesting

Authentic experiences with some of the comforts of home

For those who like to travel in comfort

All the unique experiences wrapped up with a gold ribbon