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David Bowie is back in Berlin

The international exhibition that spans David Bowie's career across five decades opens its doors to the public this Tuesday at Martin-Gropius-Museum in Berlin.

Published: 19 May 2014 13:15 CEST
David Bowie is back in Berlin
David Bowie exhibition at Martin-Gropius Museum in Berlin. Photo: DPA

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Curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), “David Bowie Is” is the fastest-selling exhibition shown by the London museum. The curators, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh, have selected more than 300 objects that explore and document the singer's creative and musical odyssey, together with his many different artistic personas such as Ziggy Stardust.

Among the objects on display are original costumes, instruments, music videos, fashion, handwritten lyrics and set designs.

David Bowie lived in Berlin from 1976 to 1978, where he wrote and recorded the successful Heroes album, part of the Berlin Trilogy – Low, Heroes and Lodger, at the legendary Hansa Studios.

A special Berlin version of the exhibition has been curated for the German staging of "David Bowie Is", with an additional 60 objects from the “Berlin Years”.

Although short, the time he spent in Berlin is often viewed as the most innovative and productive period of his career.

Showcasing objects and photos from that era, the exhibition takes the visitor on a colourful and creative journey through Bowie's Berlin. Influenced by the vibrant Berlin nightlife, he drew on his experiences and the energy from Berlin's clubbing scene and his artistic friends, including Iggy Pop, as he broke boundaries with fashion, music and art.

The title song of Heroes was inspired by a doomed romance in the shadows of the Berlin Wall. As Bowie watched the lovers kissing under a watchtower, he penned the song which was to become his Berlin anthem and one of his best-loved songs.

In addition to the exhibition, dedicated Bowie fans can also take a music tour the Bowie Berlin Walk during the exhibition's run. The musical tour takes a journey around past the Hansa Studios, through Potsdamer Platz, Checkpoint Charlie and to Platz der Republik in front of the Reichstag, where he held an outdoor concert in June 1987.

“David Bowie Is” will be officially opened by foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday and open to the public from Tuesday. The exhibition will run until August 10th.

SEE ALSO: Berlin's best street art – in pictures

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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