Cathy's Art Diary

Touching small exhibition at the Fitzrovia Chapel of photographs of David Bowie by Kevin Davies. Davies rediscovered these photographs taken over one day in December 1992 for the album “Black Tie White Noise”. The original collection was over 400 images of which 20 are shown here. There were a mix of styled images for the album and a series shot late in the day when Davies asked to capture Bowie “just as you are.” All the images were beautiful but I think my favourites were the informal ones. The official ones didn’t make the final cut for the album which was photographed by Nick Knight but were used for publicity for it. I was also interested as last year I went to an exhibition on photos by Brian Duffy for the “Aladdin Sane” album 29 years before so this was an interesting comparison. The works looked great in the space and it’s always good to have an excuse to visit this beautiful venue. Closed 20 March 2024 Review Evening Standard  

Small exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall on David Bowie at the venue. The archive display was to mark 50 years since the release of the Aladdin Sane album which the South Bank is celebrating and included material from a number of occasions when Bowie had played on site from a minor appearance as a mime artist in 1968 through to his curation of the Meltdown Festival in 2002. The story was told via programmes, posters and ephemera with neat commentaries on each event. Closed 18 June 2023

Excellent exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall to mark 50 years since the release of the Aladdin Sane album by David Bowie. I was expecting an over stylised show about the album but it concentrated on the iconic album cover of Bowie with a lightning bolt across his face taken by Brian Duffy. Most of the material came from Duffy’s archive and was used to set the scene and tell the story of the photo session. I loved a section on album covers explaining how Sgt Pepper was the first album to have such an ornate, artistic one. Prior to that covers had been quite bland pictures of the artists. There was a wonderful selection many of which I not only recognised but have. The show explained how one requirement of the shoot was to cost a lot of money! Bowie’s manager    calculated that if they ran up a big bill the record company would have to put money into marketing to recoup the costs. Duffy therefore choose an innovative printing process which could only be done in Switzerl...

Blockbuster exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the life and work of David Bowie which and unprecedented access to his archives. I must admit I came out of this exhibition a bit confused. It was a sumptuously arranged show particularly the latter half which showcased his stage costumes.   I loved the high ceilinged room with floor to ceiling screens showing film of live performances with costumes in front of them. I suspect most of the people in the exhibition at any given time are standing mesmerized in that room.   I would gripe though that there were also costumes behind the screens which you just got glimpses of. It would have been nice to see them properly. Another gripe was the tape tour. It was an innovative idea to set off sounds and commentary as you walked round but it didn’t always work at the pace you had to walk round. I am still recovering from half an hour of repetitive snippets of Gilbert and George singing “Underneath the Arche...