22/07/2025
The Chameleon Art Collector
Only Bowie could weave together St Ives modernism, Vorticist edge, Dada wit, and Basquiat’s raw brilliance and make it all feel like one magnetic pulse. His collection wasn’t about trends; it was about transformation.
He played Andy Warhol on screen and named a song after him, splattered paint with Damien Hirst, and connected to Auerbach’s sensibility. He admired Picabia’s visions, Bomberg’s boldness, Kossoff’s density, and the cinematic surrealism of Murnau.
His relationship wasn’t just with the artists, it was with the works themselves. As he described his connection to Basquiat: “I feel the very moment of his brush or crayon touching the canvas.”
There is a burning immediacy to his every evaporating decision that fires the imagination ten or fifteen years on, as freshly molten as the day they were poured onto the canvas. These artworks were mirrors, collaborators, extensions of his own myth-making.
His collection wasn’t static, it was his life: a metamorphosis in motion.
via .artadvisory
