The V&A has released details for its new David Bowie Centre featuring 90,000 items belonging to the star, including photographs, awards, musical instruments, album artwork and Bowie’s 1992 Thierry Mugler wedding suit.
Other highlights of the collection include song lyrics for Heroes and Ashes to Ashes, Bowie’s desk, props and scenery for concerts and film, notebooks, diaries, letters, and a self portrait.
These intimate selections from Bowie’s archive will offer fresh perspectives on the star and sit alongside other curated displays, films and installations exploring Bowie’s creative legacy and performances.
Nile Rodgers, who produced Bowie’s single and 1983 album, Let’s Dance, as well as 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, has curated items reflecting his and Bowie’s shared “love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.”
His selections include a bespoke Peter Hall suit worn by Bowie during the Serious Moonlight tour for the Let’s Dance album; Chuck Pulin photographs of Bowie and Rodgers recording Let’s Dance in New York, and personal correspondence between the duo about the Black TieWhite Noise album.
The Last Dinner Party, whose performance style draws inspiration from their shared love for Bowie, have selected objects from the 1970s that illustrate how Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists.
Their selection includes Mick Rock photos showing Bowie in intimate recording studio moments, his handwritten lyrics for ‘Win’ from the 1974 album Young Americans, and set lists for the 1976 Station to Station tour.
Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland, Abigail Morris, Aurora Nishevci and Emily Roberts of The Last Dinner Party, said: “David Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists like us to stand up for ourselves.
“Bowie is a constant source of inspiration to us. When we first started developing ideas for TLDP, we took a similar approach to Bowie developing his Station to Station album – we had a notebook and would write words we wanted to associate with the band.
“It was such a thrill to explore Bowie’s archive, and see first-hand the process that went into his world-building and how he created a sense of community and belonging for those that felt like outcasts or alienated – something that’s really important to us in our work too.”
The V&A East curatorial team also asked 18–25-year-olds from the four Olympic Boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest to choose elements of Bowie’s archive and creative legacy, encompassing private photographs, handwritten lyrics, self-portraits, his artist’s palette, sketches, costumes, and designs.
Nine rotating displays will show aspects of Bowie’s creative capacity, including ideas for never realised projects such as an idea to adapt George Orwell’s 1984.
Other displays explore Bowie’s creation of his iconic personas including Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane and look at his embrace of technology, futurism and science fiction, plus his legendary 1987 Glass Spider tour and concert at the Berlin Wall.
Madeleine Haddon, Curator at V&A East said: “Bowie embodied a truly multi-disciplinary practice – musician, actor, writer, performer, and cultural icon – reflecting the way many young creatives today move fluidly across disciplines and reject singular definitions of identity or artistry.
“His fearless engagement with self-expression and performance has defined contemporary culture and resonates strongly with the values of authenticity, experimentation and freedom that we celebrate across the collections at V&A East Storehouse.
“In the Centre, we want you to get closer to Bowie, and his creative process than ever before to inspire the next generation of creatives.”
Bookings to see 3D items from the David Bowie archive, including costumes, musical instruments, models, props and scenery, can be made through the V&A’s new seven-day-a-week Order an Object service.
Further details at vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/david-bowie-centre
