Andrew Kent Exhibition ‘David Bowie: The Passenger’ At Teatro Arcimboldi, Milan, From April 2nd

The exhibition ‘David Bowie: The Passenger by Andrew Kent’ tells, through the images and memories of the American photographer Andrew Kent, a very precise period in the life of David Bowie. Between 1975 and 1976, in fact, Bowie decided to leave behind the American experience, culminating with the success of an LP like Young Americans and the filming of The Man Who Fell To Earth to return to his native Europe and re-found his career. Some time before he died Bowie said that, despite having lived in NY for years, he felt deeply European. He must have felt the same feeling in the mid-seventies when he tried to survive in Los Angeles between esotericism, black magic and cocaine. The latter was making him implode right at the height of American success and Bowie was looking for comfort in the Farewell to Berlin, Christopher Isherwood’s novel set during the Weimar Republic, in his work and in Kraftwerk music. It is these important factors that push Bowie to imagine his return to Europe. Berlin was the chosen city, despite the fact that in London – his hometown – there were signs of another imminent revolution: Punk. The former capital of the Third Reich could not but exert a discreet fascination on Bowie also because of the wall that divided two worlds: East and West, Capitalism and Communism. A frontier built in the heart of the city to create a constant friction, in which artists like him found inspiration.

Andrew Kent’s photographs and testimonies that make up this exhibition tell of that exciting period in which everything was changing again both for Bowie and for the world around him. Not only stage photos, therefore, but also testimonies of that frenetic travelling, especially by train and ship (Bowie, in fact, hated flying in those years) to reach those places where most ordinary people could not go, such as the Soviet Bloc. The exhibition ‘David Bowie: The Passenger. By Andrew Kent’, is an Italian premiere, and consists of 50 shots and several memorabilia and original documents from Kent’s archive. Alongside the photographic path, the protagonists of Bowie’s European adventure in the mid-1970s will be faithfully and philologically reconstructed: from the train waggon that took him to Moscow, to his hotel room in Paris. And again clothes, microphones, cameras, discs, models, posters, various memorabilia and projections complete the exhibition accompanying the visitor on a spectacular and immersive journey within one of the most fascinating parentheses of the career of the icon of popular culture. In addition to the emotional aspect, the exhibition is also an opportunity for in-depth analysis, both for the general public and for the most passionate fans: with a scientific analysis conducted through the memories of Andrew Kent, in fact, it was possible to reconstruct facts hitherto little known and reveal unpublished details of Bowie’s career.

The exhibition DAVID BOWIE: THE PASSENGER by Andrew Kent is produced by Navigare Srl and Show Bees Srl, curated by Vittoria Mainoldi and Maurizio Guidoni for ONO ARTE.

The exhibition opens on April 2nd and runs until June 12th.

Tickets available here

All images © Andrew Kent.