The poetic, reckless and very modern performances of Buster Keaton’s imperturbable face have much in common with the chameleon-like ones of David Bowie, capable of growing, changing to remain himself. Two brilliant outsiders, with a great talent for visual body language and an uncommon sense for rhythm and spectacle. Both ready to make every performance a creative opportunity, never doing the same thing twice. Obvious similarities to the goal of Steve Schapirowho has already photographed both, when he took this portrait in New Mexico in 1975, a The Man Who Fell to Earth (The Man Who Fell to Earth), or rather the charismatic and intriguing ‘starman’ who relaxes on the set of the film adventure directed by Nicolas Roeg, surrounded by what he loves and inspires him.
From their first meeting in 1974 and on several occasions until the late 1980s, this also includes the harmony with the photographer and activist who has already documented what simmers along the streets of New York and the advent of the Kennedys, the pop epic of Andy Warhol and his Factory, the civil rights movement in the 1960ssports personalities like Mohammed Ali and of the seventh art, on the set of cult like Midnight Cowboy, The Godfatheras it will with Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Nowas well as Buster Keaton on the set of Movie (short film written by Samuel Beckett and directed by Alan Schneider New York, 1964). Much of what is condensed in the covers of the most relevant international newspapers of the time and in the covers of music albums, in the pages of Bowie photographs by Steve Shapiro (powerHouse Books, 2016) and in the exhibition halls of the Court Section of theState Archive of Turinwith David Bowie | Steve Schapiro: America. Dreams.
The unpublished images and texts that give rhythm to the volume published after the unexpected death of David Bowie (January 10, 2016) and today at this exhibition, opened in Turin a few months after the death of Steve Schapiro (January 15, 2022), start again from the first 1974 meeting in Los Angeles. The beginning of a great professional understanding, between two talents who share much more than the admiration for Buster Keaton, during a sort of 12-hour photographic marathon, from four in the morning to four the next morning.
“It’s four in the morning and I’m just finishing up this day’s footage with Bowie on his motorcycle in the headlights of a car. It seems that he is creating another character for his repertoire“. Steve Shapiro, in Bowie photographs by Steve Shapiro (powerHouse Books, 2016)
Twelve hours of incessant changes of style and costume directed by the artist’s inspiration, in search of that change that he has never feared, in which he has never stopped believing. He arrived in America in the seventies, having given up on the style and sound of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sanecontinuing to challenge the pinnacle of success, along with rigid social mores of fashion, gender and sexuality, with the advent of the controversial White Duke. Just one day to play with an improbable rotten green background (and the shot that also became the cover of People), or wearing styles and clothes, together with spirituality, with white vertical stripes that he painted just before on clothes and on his toes, while drawing large circles and the Kabala’s tree of life on the background paper. A ‘dress’ ended up on the cover of the book and on display, recreated after more than four decades in the video-will of Lazarus.
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The same prophetic destiny will invest the ever-evolving sound and style of Low (1977) together with Schapiro’s shot chosen for the cover, after ‘the stuff dreams are made of’ of the slender White Duke Of Station to Station (1976). An unusual album, of only six long tracks, capable of achieving commercial success in the United States (a wider and notoriously difficult market to conquer) superior to that of the United Kingdom which crowned him an icon of nonconformist style, helping Bowie to overcome one of the its most critical and devastating moments.
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There you are
You drive like crazy
from station to station
the return of the slender White Duke
who throws darts
in the eyes of lovers
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From the outset, David Schapiro becomes a privileged witness to the salient phases of the transformations of Bowie’s American adventure, often giving meaning and image to his fervent imagination, while for over five decades he continues to photograph the face of the shattered American dream that crosses the streets of New York and its most unforgettable cinematic adventures. Also there Virtual Gallery of CAMERA WORK dedicates the exhibition The Godfather to his shots on the set of a memorable film like The Godfather, (1972) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. A virtual exhibition accessible worldwide 24/7 until 22 December 2022. (camerawork.de/en/virtualgallery).
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The exhibition curated by Onoarte, produced by Radar Associazione, Extramuseum and Le Nozze di Figaro, with the patronage of the Piedmont Region, continues Bowie’s journey, waiting for the largest retrospective dedicated to his relationship with Masayoshi Sukita, starting next January 26, 2023 at the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm with Bowie by Sukita. From London to Japan.
How-to: David Bowie | Steve Schapiro: America. Dreams. Rights, State Archive of Turin, Court Section (1 December 2022 – 26 February 2023) – Archiviodistatotorino.beniculturali.it/gli-eventi/david-bowie-mostra-2022-corte
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