Art Lecture Series 3: David Bowie

In lecture we had on Thursday he learnt about David Bowie.

David Bowie was born in Brixton in London in 1947.

His mother was a waitress and his gather was a charity worker. He became interested in music from  a young age as he listened to rock and roll, folk and psychedelic music which influenced his work in the years to come. Space oddity was his first big hit in 1969.

Space oddity 

He also showed interest in mime and the theatre in which he used when performing on stage. 

Jean Genet and Tony Visconti influenced him. David Bowie invented Ziggy Stardust which was a breakthrough for his career. He based the clothes, makeup and hair on Ziggy. He gained success when he cut words from different pieces and added them in his songs. He was sexually promiscuous but the whole idea was for peace and love. He would wear stage costumes which he wore throughout the whole tour in which he would hold stage shows and performance which was something different for the time, and was considered innovative. The name he used came from a cowboy and stardust was considered a genius masterpiece as it was as if he was an alien from outer space, a shock to society and said outrageous things for the time. In his shows he looked outstanding and amazing hence people where shocked when he said it would be his last show but he meant as Ziggy Stardust.

Ziggy Stardust

After changing from his alter ego Ziggy Stardust he switched his music to punk rock, new wave and rock. He sold 140 million records, created 28 studio albums and the last two included Blackstar which was released in 2016 which was the year of his death.

Bowie had many talents and one included his interest in painting. He used to paint from school but continued painting whilst creating and playing music. He projected his work in 1994 which was influenced by German expressionist art, Frank Auerback and Leon Kossoff. Many artists influenced him along with Andy Warhol in the Basquiet film in 1996. Basquiat is a story of how art sells. Frank Auerback made paintings which were almost sculptural and had more meanings that just being almost sculptural pieces. In 1997 he made work inspired by Tarot cards which were inspired by Aleister Crowley. Crowley was an eccentric and a member of Led Zeppelin which held magic rituals etc. David Bowie  was interested in cult things and explored them in depth in his art. He did many self portraits and portraits in general which promoted the concept of expressionism by using colours, looks and paints. He used art to express his emotions, beliefs and opinions.

Portrait of JO 1976

Lovers 1975

Self Portrait

Bowie created many more pieces other than the ones indicated above which were surreal and exquisite corpse pieces. In my idea the reason in which he created the wrong head into the wrong body in order to promote acceptance to people who are different than the rest, meaning people with mental problems, gender, preferences, appearance and identity crisis. In my opinion this is iconic and in inspiring as very little people shine light on these problems. He also drew money symbols on his painting and wrote 'Squeeze'. From my point of view i see it as him exposing specific rich people who take advantage of the poor and try to make money from anything in any way possible without measuring the consequences their actions but are only influenced by greed.

David Bowie was also an art collector and owned a huge collection which his wife sold for 33 million pounds in an auction after his death.

In addition he was an editor and writer for 'Modern Painters Magazine'. He loved art as he collected it, made it and created art in different forms. He died on the 10th of January in 2016 which was a huge loss for the world really as he was an amazing man who revolutionised art in his own way from expressionism in paintings, music and performance.