“Priceless items” from life of David Bowie to go on display for public

• The V&A museum has acquired the archive of David Bowie.
• The archive will be put on display in a new east London location in 2025.
• The acquisition will make it possible to display archives to the public.

Fans of David Bowie will now have access to an unprecedented insight into his life, career, and legacy thanks to the V&A museum’s acquisition of the musician’s archive.

More than 80,000 letters, song lyrics, pictures, stage designs, awards for music, and costumes are included in the collection.

It also includes a number of the musician’s own instruments, such as the Stylophone he used to create his breakthrough hit Space Oddity in 1969.

In 2025, the archive will be put on display in a brand-new east London location.

According to Dr Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, the David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will serve as a “sourcebook for the Bowies of tomorrow.”

Kate Bailey, a senior curator who previously contributed to the museum’s ground-breaking 2013 David Bowie Is… show, said, “It’s an amazing gift.”

“It traces the whole of Bowie’s career. There are priceless items from his very early days in the in the ’60s, right through to [2013 album] The Next Day and beyond.

“I found it fascinating – the personal insights, the handwritten lyrics, the dialogue with other creative practitioners in terms of how a song is written or how a song is recorded or how a video is treated.

“All of these things are incredibly rich and powerful.”

Also Read

Rocker David Bowie’s recalled late-night meeting with John Cameron 

John Cameron Mitchell will pay homage to David Bowie in Charlotte, North...

Freddie Burretti’s 1972 Ziggy Stardust costumes for Bowie and the union jack coat that Bowie and Alexander McQueen created for the 1997 Earthling album cover are two more standouts.

The collection also includes examples of Brian Eno’s “cut-up” method for lyric writing, which included literally slicing up old texts to create new meanings from the rearranged bits. This method was employed in Bowie’s 1977 albums Low and Heroes.

Ms. Bailey praised the archive’s preservation efforts, calling them “wonderful” and “meticulous.”

“These objects, these documents, had importance to him and you get the sense that, because he was always moving on creatively, it was helpful to park and collect and store [everything] in order to move on to the next character or project.”

The David Bowie Estate, a £10 million gift from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group, and the acquisition by the V&A made it possible to build the Bowie centre.

A representative for Bowie’s estate stated in a news release: “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&A East Storehouse offers- will mean David’s work can be shared with the public in ways that haven’t been possible before.”

Nile Rodgers, a musician and producer who worked with Bowie on the album Let’s Dance in 1983, continued: “I believe everyone will agree with me when I say 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!”

Also Read

‘Moonage Daydream,’ a David Bowie documentary, has been picked up by Neon and HBO

Moonage Daydream, a true to life highlight about the life and vocation...