I saw the “David Bowie Is” exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art back in November of 2014. It was like walking through a big Bowie scrapbook: doodles, notes, newspaper clippings, photos. And there were many heftier souvenirs of his career, too, including costumes, a beloved coke spoon, keys to the Berlin apartment the shared with Iggy Pop, and — a favorite of mine — the crystal balls from Labyrinth.
The exhibit demonstrated Bowie’s extraordinary involvement in the minutiae of his work — he sketched set designs for even his early high school shows. And it offered a glimpse into his creative process, like with these in-progress lyrics for “Ziggy” and “Blackout.”
How did Bowie manage to amass a museum-worthy collection of personal items? “I suspect it’s because he was a hoarder who became a genius,” Victoria Broackes, a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum where the exhibit was first shown, has said. “He didn’t throw anything away. In his early days he imagined himself as a successful person.”
I also got to see of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes play stripped-down versions of his favorite Bowie songs, including “Queen Bitch” and “Moonage Daydream.” The performance was followed by an interview and Q&A session with the very enthusiastic crowd. (The gal next to me was done up like Bowie during his Thin White Duke era. You can hear her humming along in the video, too.).