Inhibition: Sharing an experience with family and considering, what exactly is art?
Betty’s response: The work of David Bowie!
Experience: During this Thanksgiving week I set out with visiting family to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art to explore the David Bowie retrospective.
Image taken from an MCA postcard from, “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” by David Bowie 1976. Original stills taken by David James.
A fragment of the image taken above as you enter the installation.
What I didn’t know: David Bowie mimed? He’s a painter? And whoever heard of the “verb-a-rator?” So this is my second time to see the Bowie exhibit however, when taking my family I was super nervous they wouldn’t be into it. Well they were! So much so that we explored the entire show for over three hours (MCA estimates visitors will take ninety minutes). Taken from the David Bowie archives, approximately seven rooms exhibit over forty years of his career and feature artist’s work he collaborated with like costume designers Alexander McQueen and Kansai Yamamoto, photographers Helmut Newton, Brian Duffy and John Rowlands, album artists Guy Peellaert and Edward Bell. Not only is the show visually spectacular, with images, hand written notes and lyrics, posters and paintings, mannequins dressed in his incredible costumes, film, video, and television excerpts but it is also incredibly immersive due to head sets you wear that automatically cue to play comments, interviews, and songs as you explore each room. WOO and WHEW! This exhibit continues through January 4…
SOOOOOO!!! GET OVER THERE AND SHOW ME WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW! And while you’re at it, take along a friend or loved one and show them too!
ps. As of late, and in particular, I am thinking about the question…what is art?
My Bike Betty 