Milan, David Bowie in Andrew Kent's photos at the Arcimboldi Theater.

The Arcimboldi Theater in Milan is hosting until June 22 the exhibition David Bowie: the passenger. By Andrew Kent, which recounts, through the images and memoirs of American photographer Andrew Kent, a very specific period in David Bowie’s life. Between 1975 and 1976, in fact, Bowie decided to leave behind the American experience, culminating in 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 refound his career. Sometime before his death Bowie said that although he had lived in NY for years, he felt deeply European. He must have felt the same way in the mid-1970s when he was trying to survive in Los Angeles among esotericism, black magic, and cocaine. The latter was causing him to implode at the very height of his American success, and Bowie sought solace in Farewell to Berlin, Christopher Isherwood ’s novel set during the Weimar Republic, in his work and in the music of Kraftwerk. It was these important factors that prompted Bowie to imagine his own return to Europe. Berlin was the city of choice, despite the fact that in London, his hometown, there were signs of another impending revolution: Punk. The former capital of the Third Reich could not help 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 the story of that agitated period in which everything was changing again for both Bowie and the world around him. Not only stage photos, then, but also accounts of that frenetic travel, especially by train and ship (Bowie, in fact, detested 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 journey will be faithfully and philologically reconstructed environments that were the protagonists of Bowie’s European adventure in the mid-1970s: from the train car that took him to Moscow, to his hotel room in Paris. And more clothes, microphones, cameras, records, models, posters, various memorabilia and projections complete the exhibition, taking the visitor on a spectacular and immersive journey inside one of the most fascinating parentheses of the popular culture icon’s career. Besides other than the emotional aspect, the exhibition is also an opportunity for in-depth study, both for the general public and for the most passionate fans: in fact, with a scientific analysis conducted through Andrew Kent’s memoirs, it has been possible to reconstruct hitherto little-known facts and reveal previously unpublished details of Bowie’s career.

The exhibition is produced by Navigare Srl and Show Bees Srl, curated by Vittoria Mainoldi and Maurizio Guidoni for ONO ARTE.

For all information, you can visit the event’s official website.

Pictured: David reads through a book in his bed during a rare quiet morning in his suite at l’Hotel in Paris (1976)

Milan, David Bowie in Andrew Kent's photos at the Arcimboldi Theater.

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