Exploring Bowie’s Berlin years
Print Edition
DAVID Bowie’s richly creative years in gritty 1970s Berlin where he made his iconic “Heroes” album are explored in a new exhibition expanding on last year’s hit London show.
Handwritten lyrics with words crossed out for the title track about a couple meeting at the Berlin Wall, a letter he wrote to Marlene Dietrich, and the painting he did that helped him kick a drug habit — are among some 60 additional items in the Berlin show that reveal the seminal period Bowie spent in the divided German capital.
The multi-media exhibit, to be officially opened tomorrow by Germany’s foreign minister, is hosted by the Martin Gropius Bau museum which, appropriately, stood next to the former East-West Berlin border until the Wall fell.
“Bowie without Berlin doesn’t work,” said Martin Roth, director of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, where the “David Bowie Is” retrospective became its fastest-selling show ahead of the 2013 launch.
Victoria Broackes, who co-curated the V&A show, said Berlin “seemed to correspond” with Bowie’s personality.
She pointed to his interest in history, especially the 1919-33 Weimar Republic, as well as art and Berlin’s culture and buzzing subcultures in the 1970s, in addition to “his passion for discovery and innovation.”
“It was here that he seemed to escape his demons... and rejuvenate his inspiration,” she said.
Bowie rekindled his love affair with Berlin when he broke a decadelong musical silence last year on his 66th birthday with “Where Are We Now?” in which he namechecks iconic Berlin sites. And the city returns his affection, seeing Bowie proudly as an artist who let the world know that Berlin, then a capitalist islet behind the Iron Curtain, was cool.
The show, which runs to August 10, explores his sources of inspiration, the people and places that influenced him.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
