On September 13, the V&A East Storehouse – the institution’s huge new museum space in Stratford’s Olympic Park, which holds more than a quarter of a million objects – opened a new archive dedicated to one of recent history’s most legendary Londoners: the David Bowie Centre.
The archive, curated by V&A East curator Madeleine Haddon with extensive input from Bowie’s own archival team, features more than 90,000 items documenting his life and creative process, from hand-scrawled notes to stage wear, fan art, musical instruments, personal ephemera and more. “[It’s] more of a behind-the-scenes experience than a traditional exhibition display,” Haddon tells *Broadsheet.
The centre is free to enter and is split into two main sections. There’s a display room showing a small portion of the archive that’s part-chosen by current guest curators Nile Rodgers and The Last Dinner Party; curators rotate every two years. Included in the inaugural main exhibition are a handwritten thank you note from Lady Gaga, the pale blue Freddie Burretti suit Bowie wore in the video for Life on Mars? and a pair of official Mattel Bowie Barbies. The catalogue is absolutely rigorous. That was helped in part by the Starman himself, whose Post-it notes are attached to items he’d started to archive before his passing.
The second part of the centre is a pair of rooms that facilitate the museum’s novel “order an object” system. Visitors can pre-book an appointment to view up to five items of their choice from the archive. Fans will inevitably have a tough time narrowing down what to order. Standouts include the guitar played in the Space Oddity video and the key to the Berlin apartment Bowie famously shared with Iggy Pop in the late ’70s. The legendary oversized black and white plastic tuxedo that the singer wore in 1979 to perform The Man Who Sold The World with artist Klaus Nomi on Saturday Night Live is impressive – all the more so for not being behind glass. In fact, much of the centre’s paper archive – including the notebook which features in the visuals for Black Star– can be handled by visitors.
“We want to facilitate that connection between Bowie’s life, the archive and the next generation,” says Haddon.
The David Bowie Centre is now open Parkes Street, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, E20 3AX.
