As musician Nile Rodgers once noted, David Bowie did not just make art – he was art.
So it is apt that his life and work should be celebrated in the V&A Dundee, within earshot of the first venue he played in Scotland under his new stage name.
David Bowie and the Buzz were not even the headline act that night at the Palais de Dans in 1966, but it was the start of a relationship with Scottish fans which continues today.
David Bowie: On Tour is the first exhibition to showcase items from the singer’s archive, which was acquired by the V&A in London in 2023.
Many of the 100 items selected from the 90,000 housed in the David Bowie Centre, which was built to contain the sprawling archive, have never been seen in public.
Among them, his first instrument, a saxophone, which his father bought him for Christmas in 1961, the stopwatch he used when songwriting, his 1988 passport and an advance copy of The Velvet Underground’s 1967 record I’m Waiting for the Man.