Original Creators: David Bowie

Each week we pay homage to a select "Original Creator"—an iconic artist from days gone by whose work influences and informs today's creators. These are artists who were innovative and revolutionary in their fields. Bold visionaries and radicals, groundbreaking frontiersmen and women who inspired and informed culture as we know it today. This week: David Bowie.

"I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring." – David Bowie

One of my earliest memories involves a younger version of myself staring deep into the artwork of my parents’ David Bowie album, Aladdin Sane. With the same macabre fascination reserved for questions about dead pets and stolen glimpses of X-Files episodes, I asked my parents who and what and why. They answered simply: “Bowie.” My six-year-old mind, all but completely unfamiliar with images of high art and androgyny, sought six-year-old answers. Was this person real? Was he a man or a woman? Was he trying to be both? And did he even care that I had to wonder?

“It’s Bowie,” they repeated. They played me back the same few songs I had been singing along to for years. And finally, I listened.

Ziggy Stardust. Major Tom. How much there is to say about the man at the forefront of music, art, film and style for over forty years, whose only consistent career trait is constant, total reinvention. In 1969, to coincide with the moon landing, Bowie appeared for his first time on television to perform “Space Oddity.” Fresh-faced, bellbottomed, adorned with an acoustic guitar and singing a song about losing one's self in the future, Bowie seemed a summative testament to the post-hippie.

His next release, The Man Who Sold the World, solidified his place in rock and roll. And then, just two years later, a nearly unrecognizable Bowie reemerged as Ziggy Stardust, perennial globetrotting star, an austere combination of Lou Reed's pop sensibilities and the feminine mystery of Lauren Bacall. With a critically-acclaimed concept tour captured by D.A. Pennebaker and Bowie's dramatic finale, in which he eliminated his Ziggy Stardust character forever, Bowie solidified his fan base, and the rest is history.

photo via spacecollective

With his musical legacy sealed, however, Bowie turned his sights toward both film and the arts. A brief stint in film as a teen and and a penchant for on-stage theatrics made Bowie the perfect candidate for an acting career. His first film role as Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth garnered him a Saturn Award and only further increased his status as an icon.

Around the same time, Bowie became associated with both The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol's Factory. Their relationships blossomed, as did an ensuing drug addiction, and the profound effect they had on Bowie's career and personality can be seen in his subsequent emergence as The Thin White Duke, pictured below. Bowie effectively initiated the idea of pop-icon-as-larger-than-life-character, a concept emulated across the board today, from Lady Gaga to My Chemical Romance. His music, too, changed focus, from rock and roll anthems and ballads into dancier funk and soul, enabling him to effectively corner the American market. Of this shift, biographer Christopher Sandford writes, "Over the years, most British rockers had tried, one way or another, to become black-by-extension. Few had succeeded as Bowie did now."

Ultimately releasing 23 albums, the most recent being 2003's moderately reviewed Reality, and stealing the best roles in films including Labyrinth, Basquiat, Zoolander and The Prestige, Bowie has more than secured his place in history as musician, actor and icon. Though he has slowed down markedly in recent years, with an image as timeless as his music and a style unmistakably his own, David Bowie's abilities as a Creator are matched only by his lasting contributions to music, fashion, film and art. Who and what and why? Just ask the hot chick in the lightning-bolt face paint at your next costume party. Bowie.

David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” music video was remixed by Mick Rock and Barney Clay, and showcased among other installations at our Paris event at La Gaîté lyrique this past June. Look for the project at our New York event in October.

Plenty of slime and snails and puppy dog tails: learn the power of voodoo through Bowie’s “Magic Dance” from Labyrinth.

Here’s Bowie’s 1974 performance of “Rebel Rebel” in a killer costume. Hot tramp, we love you so.