DAVID BOWIE IS OPEN TO INTERPRETATION

Currently , the V & A is staging the exhibition, DAVID BOWIE IS and I went to see it at the week end. ' One of the key roles of the museum is to celebrate great design.  Bowie is not only one of the great musicians of the last half century, but is also among the great design visionaries,' writes the director of V& A, Martin Roth.  As curators, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh say: 'David Bowie is one of the most imporatnt artists of the last 50 years.'  Too right.  He forms a link that connects J.G Ballard, Will Self, Brian Eno, William Burroughs, Louise Le Cavalier, Andy Warhol, Bertolt Brecht, William Blake, Philip Glass, Charlie Chaplin, Nietzsche, Marlene Dietrich, Salvador Dali, Antonin Artaud...'DAVID BOWIE IS OPEN TO CHANCE' as he reinvents himself 'DAVID BOWIE IS SO SWISHY IN HER SATIN AND TAT' a pioneer of invented identities, Major Tom, Ziggy, Alladin Sane, Halloween Jack, the Thin White Duke and 'himself. 'DAVID BOWIE IS SOMEONE ELSE' questioing identity, gender and social norms.  He is one of Ballard's 'astronauts of inner space' the 'surrealists are the iconographers of inner space...the internal landscape...concerned with the discovery of images in which internal and external reality meet and fuse.' 'DAVID BOWIE IS READING BETWEEN THE LINES'  The exhibition is a spectacular series of montages, a juxtaposition of film, mime, sound, images, kabuki theatre, masks, dance, costumes, text, paintings, lyrics, newspaper cuttings, quotes 'THERE IS NO ONE LIKE HIM, HE'S DAVID BOWIE.' I sat in an open space surrounded by huge images of Bowie belting it out,'it's outrageous, he screams and he moans,' and I was back in the late 70s, wanting to put on my 'red shoes and dance.' like I did when I saw him three times, once supporting Iggy Pop and his influence on me was profound. 'DAVID BOWIE IS NOWHERE FROM HERE.' I was a Creative Arts student, visiting art galleries, reading a lot, watching films, going to dance performances and mime and theatre and once upon a time Laurie Anderson, engaging in the avant garde and fashion and the Manchester music scene, learning from my lecturers that a 'catalyst for creativity might be a title of a book, a costume in a film or the'Oblique Strategy'of chance, even then 'I only do (did) what I want to do (did) artistically.'  'DAVID BOWIE IS WEARING A MASK ON HIS OWN FACE.'  And how I agree,'All art is unstable.  It's meaning is not necessarily that implied by the author there is no authoritative voice. There are only multiple readings.'  It was (is) an extraordinary exhibition, stimulating and uplifting.  It rock(s)ed. 'DAVID BOWIE IS LOOKING FOR A FUTURE THAT WILL NEVER COME TO PASS.' 'In a celebrity-soaked world, a character off-stage can remain on-stage.'  But the final words from a fan, THANK GOD FOR DAVID BOWIE
Who lifted us
From the drabness
of surburbia
and showed us
glittering possibilities
THANK GOD
for erotica
exotica
lean
mean
back beat
slim hipswing
saxophone overblown
THANK GOD
for camp
THANK GOD
for fab
hair
cut and clothes
THANK YOU
Dahling
kisskisskiss
Here, here, Annie L, I couldn't agree more!