In South Kensington, David Bowie Is has broken every record - since 2013, this has been the most highly-attended exhibition in the history of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Its success has brought it on tour, involving 11 museums throughout the world - from London to New York, it has used 500 objects to tell of the life, music and the extravagant and visionary talent of the White Duke. Seeing its draw, the museum on Cromwell Road saw no need to change, thus maintaining one of the most extraordinary collections dedicated to Bowie ever assembled. Today, it can also be admired online, with its album covers, objects and rare photos, capable of launching us right into the creative processes of one of the most influential artists of the last Century. From the pioneering works of art connected to the album Diamond Dogs to the iconic photos of Kevin Cummins and Terry O’Neil, from the scenery for the legendary Serious Moonlight Tour to the collaborations with artists and designers, Bowie’s multifaceted career is presented in its entirety. A spotlight is placed on the transversal nature of his influence - not just on music, but on art, design, theatre and contemporary culture as a whole. Explosive discoveries, a chameleon-like and ever-expansive personality allowed the musician and performer from London to reinvent himself for five decades, becoming, as declared by a survey by the BBC in 2019, “the greatest entertainer of the XX Century”.
Remembering Malcolm X 100 years after his birth and 60 years after his death with an exhibition where Theaster Gates reworks the archive of the late Japanese journalist Ei Nagata and his partner Haruhi Ishitani.
An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery dedicated to Stanisław Wyspiański, one of the most important Polish artists of the 19th century. Sixteen portraits on display, many of which have never been shown before in Britain, to tell the story of the artistic talent of a leading figure of the modernist movement, Young Poland.
The exhibition features a selection of important oil paintings spanning her career as an artist from the 1980s to the present by Armenian-American artist Maro Gorky. They include scenes from Gorky family life, the Tuscan home where she has lived with her sculptor husband Matthew Spender since the 1960s, and landscapes of the Sienese countryside.
In 1924, the V&A received a gift of over 80.000 playbills, programmes and objects from collector Gabrielle Enthoven. The gift marked the beginning of the museum's collection of theatre material, which has since evolved into the UK's National Collection of Performing Arts.