Showing posts with label david bowie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label david bowie. Show all posts

Saturday, January 08, 2022

75 - David Bowie

 


Changes/ David Bowie 41" x 25.5" pastel on paper 2017
by Gregg Chadwick

75th Anniversary of his birth - David Bowie was born on this day in 1947.
His decades of groundbreaking music and his shape shifting persona, inspired so many of us little aliens in suburbia to fight against conformity and become our true selves.

My artwork looks back on Bowie when he released his haunting song "Where Are We Now?", which is as much a painting in soft greys as it is a song. A quiet rhythm of drums and synth warp and weft with minor key piano chords and Bowie's plaintive, elegiac voice.
Set in a Berlin of memory and dream, Bowie's voice and lyrics question the themes of human bondage, release, freedom, doubt, ageing, and death. Bowie lived in West Berlin between 1976 and 1979 in the Schöneberg district in a house with Iggy Pop while Brian Eno and Tony Visconti were helping record Bowie's Berlin trilogy of albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger in the now legendary Hansa Studios. Years later, Bowie looks back in "Where Are We Now?" and echoes his words about Low, "Berlin has the strange ability to make you write only the important things. Anything else you don't mention."

The political and the personal merge in my pastel painting of Bowie. We are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. But Bowie's quietly defiant voice does not give in to any dying of the light.
Pictured: Changes/ David Bowie 41" x 25.5" pastel on paper 2017

Monday, July 16, 2018

This Is Not America




Thursday, January 25, 2018

Remembering David Bowie at the Neutra Institute

by Gregg Chadwick

Bowie Intergalactic Tribute Art Exhibit at the Neutra Museum
(Curated by Dulce Stein)



Gregg Chadwick

Changes: David Bowie
41”x25.5” pastel on paper 2017

My pastel on paper artwork Changes: David Bowie will be on exhibit in a David Bowie tribute international multidisciplinary group show at The Neutra Museum in Silverlake.
My artwork looks back on Bowie  when he released his haunting song Where Are We Now? which is as much a painting in soft greys as it is a song. A quiet rhythm of drums and synth warp and weft with minor key piano chords and Bowie's plaintive, elegiac voice.
Set in a Berlin of memory and dream, Bowie's voice and lyrics question the themes of human bondage, release, freedom, doubt, ageing, and death. Bowie lived in West Berlin between 1976 and 1979 in the Schöneberg district in a house with Iggy Pop while Brian Eno and Tony Visconti were helping record Bowie's Berlin trilogy of albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger in the now legendary Hansa Studios. Years later, Bowie looks back in "Where Are We Now?" and echoes his words about Low, "Berlin has the strange ability to make you write only the important things. Anything else you don't mention."
The political and the personal merge in my pastel painting of Bowie. We are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. But Bowie's quietly defiant voice does not give in to any dying of the light.

What: Bowie Intergalactic Tribute Art Exhibit at the Neutra Museum
Where: Neutra Museum, 2379 Glendale Boulevard, Silver Lake, California
When:  Opening Night - Saturday, January 27, 2018, 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
               Exhibition runs from January 27 - February 11, 2018
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/330235890792196/

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Astronaut Performs David Bowie's Space Oddity While Orbiting the Earth

by Gregg Chadwick

Tonight, a stunning cover of David Bowie's Haunting song Space Oddity was released from space by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station. The imagery is stunning, reminiscent of the film Moon directed by David Bowie's son Duncan Jones. Sometimes life really does imitate art, even while orbiting earth in a tin capsule in space.

UPDATE: Since I posted this last night, Chris Hadfield's video has gone viral with over a million views and counting!

 David Bowie's Facebook editors loves the clip stating,"It’s possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created." Their Facebook posts continues:
you may recognise the name of one of those involved in its creation.
We’re talking about Chris's fellow Canadian, the lovely Emm Gryner, who was a part of the Bowie live band in 1999/2000. Here’s what she said on her blog (http://smarturl.it/EmmBlog) regarding her involvement:
“The task was in front of me. I came up with a piano part. i then enlisted my friend, producer and fellow Canadian Joe Corcoran to take my piano idea and Chris' vocal and blow it up into a fully produced song. Drums! mellotrons! fuzz bass! We also incorporated into the track ambient space station noises which Chris had put on his Soundcloud. I was mostly blown away by how pure and earnest Chris' singing is on this track. Like weightlessness and his voice agreed to agree.And voila! And astronaut sings Space Oddity in space! I was so honoured to be asked to be a part of this. You wouldn't get too many chances to make a recording like this and not only that, to make music with someone who - through his vibrant communications with kids in schools to his breathtaking photos to his always patient and good-humoured demeanour - has done more for science and space than anyone else this generation. Planet earth IS blue, and there's nothing left for Chris Hadfield to do. Right. Safe travels home Commander! ”

And the New York Times has a nice piece on Chris, the video, and his time in space.

 

Find out more: Twitter Facebook Google+

 With thanks to Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran, Andrew Tidby and Evan Hadfield


Tuesday, January 08, 2013

David Bowie's New Berlin Elegy: Where Are We Now?




Early this morning David Bowie celebrated his 66th Birthday with the release of his first single in a decade. This song Where Are We Now?, taken from Bowie's forthcoming album The Next Day, is accompanied by an artful video directed by the contemporary artist Tony Oursler. Set in a black and white Berlin of memory and dream, Oursler's video combines with Bowie's voice and lyrics to question the themes of human bondage, release, freedom,  doubt, ageing, and death. 

 The video opens with a shot of a crystal skull on a table. Reminiscent of Gerhard Richter's evocative paintings of human skulls, this visual entrance to Bowie's musical memento mori reminds us that in Berlin we wrestle with the dead as we walk through a haunted and enchanted city. After the fall of the wall, Berlin has come to embody the future while at the same time carrying the scars of the past. 




Bowie sings:


Had to get the train
From Potsdamer Platz
You never knew
That I could do that
Just walking the dead



Gerhard Richter
 
Skull (Schadel) (1983)


Where Are We Now? is as much a painting in soft greys as it is a song. A quiet rhythm of drums and synth warp and weft with minor key 
piano chords and Bowie's plaintiveelegiac voice. 





Bowie lived in West Berlin between 1976 and 1979 in the Schöneberg district in a house with Iggy Pop while Brian Eno and Tony Visconti were helping record Bowie's Berlin trilogy of albums Low, Heroes, and Lodger in the now legendary Hansa Studios.
In an interview on a French radio program, Bowie said, “Berlin has the strange ability to make you write only the important things. Anything else you don’t mention.” 

In Where Are We Now?Bowie guides us through his former haunts:

Sitting in the Dschungel
On Nürnberger Straße
A man lost in time
Near KaDeWe
Just walking the dead


The Dschungel was a Schöneberg club frequented by Bowie, Iggy Pop, Frank Zappa, and  Nina Hagen. KaDaWe is a historical Berlin department store that originally opened in 1907. In a divided city, from its reopening in 1950 until 1989, KaDaWe was a beacon for the East and drew massive crowds after the fall of the Berlin Wall.  







In an informative piece on the creation of the cover for the upcoming album The Next Day, designer Johnathan Barnbrook writes that "the song Where Are We Now? is a comparison between Berlin when the wall fell and Berlin today. Most people know of Bowie’s heritage in Berlin and we want people to think about the time when the original album was produced and now."

Twenty thousand people
Cross Bösebrücke
Fingers are crossed
Just in case
Walking the dead


 The Bösebrücke was the bridge on which the first border crossing was opened to Eastern Berliners in November 1989 as the Berlin Wall began to fall. In Berlin, David Bowie challenged societal bondages in his art and his life. Later, the city itself broke free from the bondage of the wall. Now, years later, Bowie looks back and wonders if all the chains have been broken.


Gregg Chadwick
Berlin Noir
30"x22" monotype on paper 2011
There are hints of personal loss in Where Are We Now? as well. Does the mysterious woman who appears with David throughout the video refer to Bowie's incredibly brave and influential first wife Angela? Or is she a reference to the classical muses? Or perhaps an angel briefly freed from the the towering Siegessäule which flickers in the video behind Bowie and his partner. The political and the personal merge in Where Are We Now?. We are left with existential questions and are reminded that bodies age, marriages end, friendships dissolve and memories fade. But Bowie's quietly defiant voice does not give in to any dying of the light:



As long as there’s sun
As long as there’s sun
As long as there’s rain
As long as there’s rain
As long as there’s fire
As long as there’s fire
As long as there’s me
As long as there’s you








 Where Are We Now?
 by David Bowie
 produced by Tony Visconti 

Had to get the train
From Potsdamer Platz
You never knew
That I could do that
Just walking the dead
Sitting in the Dschungel
On Nürnberger Straße
A man lost in time
Near KaDeWe
Just walking the dead

Where are we now?
Where are we now?
The moment you know
You know you know

Twenty thousand people
Cross Bösebrücke
Fingers are crossed
Just in case
Walking the dead

Where are we now?
Where are we now?
The moment you know
You know you know

As long as there’s sun
As long as there’s sun
As long as there’s rain
As long as there’s rain
As long as there’s fire
As long as there’s fire
As long as there’s me
As long as there’s you







In March, David Bowie will release The Next Day, an album of his first new music in a decade and a reunion with longtime producer Tony Visconti. Where Are We Now? was released today on Bowie's 66th birthday. A note from his label Columbia explained this was "a timely moment for such a treasure to appear as if out of nowhere." 


Available from iTunes



More at:
Die Zeit: Nächste Abfahrt Potsdamer Platz
David Bowie: The Next Day. That album cover design


It is a new font that we are working on called Doctrine – this is the first major use of it. Doctrine will be released in the coming weeks at VirusFonts.







Friday, May 11, 2012

Mitt Romney vs. a young David Bowie?

by Gregg Chadwick




Must watch video from 1964 of a young David Bowie standing up for the rights of all. The recent news stories about Mitt Romney's extreme bullying and cruelty during his high school years comes to mind.:


"A high school classmate of presidential candidate Mitt Romney told ABC News today that he considers a particular prank the two pulled at Michigan’s Cranbrook School to be “assault and battery” and that he witnessed Romney hold the scissors to cut the hair of a student who was being physically pinned to the ground by several others.
'It’s a haunting memory.  I think it was for everybody that spoke up about it …  because when you see somebody who is simply different taken down that way and is terrified and you see that look in their eye you never forget it.  And that was what we all walked away with,' said Phillip Maxwell, who is now an attorney and still considers Romney an old friend."


Romney's actions show an almost pathological lack of empathy. We need empathy not cruelty in our President! We need a POTUS who accepts all persons equally!



Hat tip to Eric Kleefeld!

More at:
Once a Bully, Always a Bully