David Bowie's Art Collection

I’m a David Bowie fan.   I have always been a fan.  I don’t idolize him, but I share his distinct taste within our world.  I often feel like I can’t articulate my feelings about things or even people, but through Bowie’s music and, interestingly enough, his interviews.  Whenever he recommends a record, an artist, or a work, I usually seek it out.
In most cases, I find the art he likes worthwhile.   What I hear in his music is a life that is very much like mine - at least on an emotional level.   The Beatles started a culture for me, but Bowie defined the world that I lived in, and he could articulate all the pain, glory, and sensuality of that landscape.   When he passed away, it was like I had died as well. Not total death, but I felt something chip away inside my heart.  Nothing will replace the lost except his collection of art.  Bowie left us his collection, which consists of 400 items and precisely 200 works of art.   Most of the artwork is from British artists of the 20th century.   Even though he spent much of his adult life in America, he still found himself attracted to the British sensibility concerning the arts.  This, I find endearing.   Therefore I want to go into that world, in a sense, to be closer to Bowie and to be exposed to something new - something I didn’t know about.   

I woke up this morning hearing about an exhibition of Bowie’s collection at Sotheby’s. The works are for sale and will be auctioned off this November in London.   But first, it will go on a small tour of London, New York City, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles.  Not the complete collection, mind you, but just some of the artwork and design objects he had collected over the years.   The exhibition in Los Angeles is only for two days.  So after reading the article on today’s Guardian website, I found a pair of freshly cleaned pants and went directly there after my morning coffee and a sweet roll.  

Sotheby’s Los Angeles is an office space on the 29th floor of a building located in Century City.  I walked into the main reception area of the building, and I immediately felt a sense of vertigo taking over my senses.  The entire floor is shiny, so if you look down, it reflects the ceiling.  Space is vast, but the floor's texture makes it even more massive.  All there is on this floor are the entrances to the various elevators and a small reception desk.  I was told by the security team that I needed to go to the receptionist to get a pass to use the elevator.   I waited in a small line and showed them my picture I.D. once I was called over.  I was then given access, and I grabbed the side of the walls to hold myself up to get to the elevator entrance.  Once inside the elevator, I had to use the pass in a manner like a metro card - I had to press it against the wall to operate the lift.   Once I got to the 29th floor, I was in a corporate office. 

“Alexandra” (1995) by Romuald Hazoumé.

A pleasant-looking person greeted me, otherwise a woman, and she handed me a flyer with Bowie’s photograph.  I said, “thank you. “After that, I didn’t speak to another soul at the auction.  First, even though it is a corporate office suite on the 29th floor, it’s small.  The room I entered, the receptionist's office, was the actual Bowie exhibition space.  A conference room with other art was not part of the Bowie collection.  On my immediate right, behind the dark-suited security guard, was Bowie’s collection of contemporary African art. On the wall was a work of art called “Alexandra” (1995) by Romuald Hazoumé.   Once I moved behind the security guard, I could closely examine the artwork.  It resembled a gas mask to me, and seeing that it was backed by a vinyl 12” record which looks like something connected to a hi-fi, it spoke to me loudly.   Hazoumé only uses material that is recycled. And funnily, it also reminded me of Kurt Schwitters colleges.   But to me, the work is very African, and saying that is weird because I have never been to Africa or been exposed to African art before.  But it didn’t read European or American to me.  Still, there are traces of DADA within this work’s DNA.  

Patrick Caulfield "Foyer" 1973

I’m often attracted to the banal, and it seems this is something I share with the artist Patrick Caulfield.  His “Foyer” (1973) painting is the entrance to what looks like a theater or even a bar.  Ironically, this painting is in the reception room that makes this exhibition, but then, there you go.   Thought behind this painting, one would think of Mondrian due to the placement of the red color, which distances oneself from the structural aspect of the image.   Still, the painting gives me lots of comfort; I think because it’s very straightforward, innovative, and looking at a space that one can reflect on - and Caulfield is such a painter that can paint a room and fill it with psychological meanings.  Also, having no human being in the art makes one think of the design of the room/space itself.  I‘m very fond of this painting. 

"Interior (Mrs. Mounter)" Harold John Wilde Giman 1917

The complete opposite of Caufield’s “Foyer” would be “Interior (Mrs. Mounter),” painted in 1917 by Harold John Wilde Gilman. It’s an image of a boarding house room with basic but utterly servile furniture for the tenant who stays there.  A ray of light (almost Bowie-like) from the window to a specific painting or print on the wall gives the work a certain amount of tension. Mrs. Mounter (who I presume that’s who it is) overlooks the room, perhaps as the cleaning woman or even the business owner.   I don’t get the impression that she lives in the chamber.  There is loneliness in the space; one can say the same for “Foyer.” Both British are oddly removed from any drama of a structure, but the banality is shared equally, and both paintings fit well in the same room.  

"Head of Gerda Boehm" Frank Auerbach, 1965

Frank Auerbach, a fellow Londoner, and the other two above artists is a painter who looks at his subject matter.   His “Head of Gerda Boehm (1965) looks like a portrait of Bowie.   It screams “Heroes,” and I can imagine this painting taking over the now iconic photograph of that album as Bowie had commented, “My God, yeah!  I want to sound like that looks.” That pretty much explains the painting as well as Bowie’s music.  When I first saw it, I didn’t see the face for some reason. The thickness of the paint struck me, and I thought of the painting as a work of abstract expression - but alas, it’s an actual portrait.  The more one looks at it, the picture changes.   “Portrait of Dorian Gray” comes to mind.    At times, as I stood there looking at Gerda Boehm, I felt like I put my head into a body of water, opened my eyes, and saw this face through the murky liquid.   The texture or the depth of the water causes the face to come in the present in and out.  It’s a powerful work.  What is interesting is not the subject matter of the painting but how Auerbach sees his subject.  I’m not sure if people do change, but I think due to the artist, who is trained to look at an object or individual and notice a change or note that something has been altered. And again, one has to wonder if Bowie looked at this painting as his portrait.  A man who consistently desired change.  Or change that never stops.  

One thing that caught my eye (and soul) was a radiophotograph—designed and made by the brothers’ Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni for Bronvega in 1965.    This complete hi-fi set has a radio and a turntable with twin speakers in one cabinet.   The design reeks of Moderne, and I have to imagine how great it must sound concerning Bowie’s vinyl collection.    To play the same vinyl he held in his hands and hear with his ears - on his turntable…. A moment like this could not be passed up.  I put a bid in for the radiophotograph.  I put my house up for sale to ensure enough money will go into this bid and deny anyone else nabbing my prized possession.  And alas, it is now in my possession.  It cost me $327,155.00.