|
Original costumes, set designs, drawings and handwritten lyrics will allow visitors to V&A East to trace David Bowie’s creative process across six decades
Tom Anstey | Planet Attractions | 23 Feb 2023
David Bowie is an icon in British pop culture Credit: David Bowie Archives
A huge cache of more than 80,000 items of David Bowie memorabilia are set to go on permanent display in London under the V&A banner.
One of the most pioneering and influential figures in the history of live and recorded music, film, fashion and more, David Bowie is a British icon, with the star passing away in 2016 two days after his 69th birthday.
Opening in 2025, the David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts will celebrate his legacy as part of the under-construction V&A East Storehouse in Stratford, London.
The permanent display will include items that represent everything from Bowie’s early career in the 1960s all the way through his life.
These include handwritten lyrics, letters, sheet music, original costumes, fashion, photography, film, music videos, set designs, Bowie’s own instruments, album artwork and awards. As well as more intimate writings, thought processes and unrealised projects, the majority of which have never been seen in public before.
“David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time,” said V&A director Tristram Hunt.
“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.”
The acquisition and creation of the centre, which will be free-to-visit, has been made possible thanks to the David Bowie Estate alongside a £10m (US$12.4m, €11.3m) donation from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group. In addition to the new centre, the gift will support the ongoing conservation, research, and study of the archive.
V&A East Storehouse is a satellite site to London’s existing V&A Museum. According to V&A it will be “a new type of museum experience designed within and around
the V&A’s stored collections”.
The experience will take visitors behind the scenes, enabling unprecedented access to V&A’s collections in a new purpose-built home for more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives.
V&A East Storehouse also brings together conservation labs, working stores, research and reading rooms with galleries, display and performance spaces and creative studios – brought together through an extensive public network centred around the Collections Hall, to create a unique experience for visitors.
Museums and galleries
|
|
Storm surge: How Chimelong Spaceship’s award-winning and record-breaking Bermuda Storm was brought to life
|
