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Ground control to Bowie fans
By Espe Currie and Jade Leung
Tickets went on sale today for David Bowie is, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s next big exhibit.
The show opens Sept. 25 and “includes nearly 300 costumes, photographs, music videos, album art and lyrics all from David Bowie’s personal collection,” says the AGO’s executive director of education and public programming, Kelly McKinley. “Visitors will hear and see Bowie and his artistic influences in a new way.”
AGO aims at youth
The exhibit is the latest in a number of youth and accessibility-oriented initiatives the AGO has undertaken to raise its community profile. This time, the first 200 guests to arrive dressed as David Bowie on opening day will get in free.
As a part of this initiative, Noni Kaur, professor and program coordinator of Humber’s Visual and Digital Arts program, takes her 17 and 18-year-old students to the AGO every year.
At the Patti Smith exhibit earlier this year, the group had a surprise: “She was there!” says Kaur, “For them to see the icon in person – we were so lucky.”
Kaur’s class will do a workshop when they visit the Bowie exhibit in early October: “They will be expressing themselves and responding to the work, so we’re tying it into a drawing session.”
She says having her students see new media in a gallery setting is invaluable: “New media art is just going that way totally – it’s not like you see conventional paintings on the wall anymore. I’m stoked to see my students’ reactions.”
The exhibit opens Sept. 25, with an opening party Sept. 27.
David Bowie is, a touring exhibition from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, draws from materials in the Davie Bowie Archive.