Bowie: When Art-Rock Rocks Art
Derek Liddington Portrait (David Jones as David Bowie as Jareth as Goblin King) 2009 Detail Courtesy of Clark & Faria
Summertime is interchangeable with music-festival time for many Canadians, with events like Osheaga, Hillside and Sled Island happening coast to coast almost every weekend. For the dog days of August this year, Clark and Faria is going with the flow, organizing a group show not just on pop music, but on one of pop music’s biggest living icons: David Bowie. Granted, with his history of outrageous outfits, multiple stage personae and even a studio art practice, Bowie isn’t necessarily the most out-there choice for an art-show theme. But he is a timely one: the 40th anniversary edition of Bowie’s Space Oddity album hit iPods recently, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art is hosting a singalong screening of Labyrinth in a few weeks’ time. At Clark and Faria, the tributes are more visual than aural, with emerging Toronto artist Derek Liddington’s pencil drawings of Bowie’s hairstyles offering one perspective and American Tim Bavington’s abstract musical-score translations offering another. A 1973 collage by Roy Arden and works by Douglas Coupland, Dave Dyment, Will Munro and others round out the offerings. All that’s left is to—obviously!—bring your own body glitter. (55 Mill St, Toronto ON)
Roy Arden Sunmachine 1973 Courtesy of Clark & Faria
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