From Aladdin Sane to Ziggy Stardust at Chicago's 'David Bowie Is'

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

It felt like a wild and disparate creative trip, filled with images, sounds and sensations at every turn. I emerged three hours later with a whirl of artistic inspiration floating through my head. If this sounds like some sort of mind-bending, psychedelic experience, that’s exactly how I’d describe the “David Bowie Is” exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago.

An extravaganza of music, video, art and fashion, the exhibit should top the bucket list of all Chi-town visitors. Chicago is the only American city to host the show organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and it has lured holiday travelers with as much flash and style as Magnificent Mile streets.

You don’t have to be a museum nerd or a Bowie fan to appreciate the exhibit although I fall into both categories. David Bowie’s work as an artist and musician is so far-reaching that it touches anyone who is exposed to it.

It helps to know some cultural references however, because viewers are transported through five decades of creative output that can be quite dizzying without context. The MCA supplies new, Sennheiser digital technology for an interactive audio tour timed to each room that helps with the Bowie background but I’d recommend a little research if you’re unfamiliar.

The visual build up to the show is as clever as Bowie’s music. Outside the museum, a wall with a photo of Bowie as Aladdin Sane, saturated in orange, lines a wall. A march up the MCA’s stairs reveals Bowie song titles on the edge of each step. Inside, a long corridor with “David Bowie Is” again on an orange backdrop, beckons.

Supplied with a headset, I began the chronological journey of Bowie’s extraordinary evolution, which differs from the previous London, Toronto, Brazil and Berlin installations, which were organized thematically.

The first visual of Bowie in a crazy, patent leather, maze-like bodysuit by Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto from his 1973 Aladdin Sane tour is not chronological but serves as a cultural touchstone for Bowie’s heavy Japanese influences.

Bowie’s early years prove intriguing, with photos and flyers of his musical beginnings playing hard-edged R&B in ’60s London as Davy Jones and the King Bees. We see sketch books from his school days when he focused on music and art and we learn that he worked in an ad agency until he left after a year to be a professional musician.

But Bowie’s idea of a musician incorporated drama, makeup and fashion as well as music. Videos of his mime performances showcase his innate ability to capture an audience. His first fully developed stage persona, Ziggy Stardust, was a result of Bowie’s quest to make “the music look like it sounds.”

An onslaught of sound and imagery fills a room with dramatic robes, a robin’s egg blue suit with eye shadow to match  and designs featuring Bowie’s miniscule 26 ½ inch waist. A three dimensional, mirrored display of his ground-breaking 1972 Top of The Pop’s TV performance of “Starman” as Ziggy Stardust rivets with his dazzling stage presence.

Highlights include the many pioneering videos that Bowie created years before music videos became a thing, an actual record bin equipped with Bowie albums to flip through, clips of his movies, including “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” an enthralling performance of Bowie singing “The Man  Who Sold The World” on Saturday Night Live in 1979, where his elaborate costume required him to be lifted up to the mic, an elegant mug shot from a 1976 marijuana arrest, a silver coke spoon that he kept in his pocket while recording “Diamond Dogs,” and oil paintings he created of his Berlin roommate and touring partner, Iggy Pop.

“David Bowie Is” is a gripping look into the influences and creativity of a multidimensional artist and performer and is not to be missed.

“David Bowie Is” runs through January 4 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.