DAVID BOWIE - BOWIE80 - PRESS RELEASE
A CELEBRATION OF DAVID BOWIE IN HIS 80th YEAR
THE ICONIC ARTIST WHO REVOLUTIONISED POPULAR MUSIC AND CULTURE THROUGH FIVE DECADES OF FEARLESS EXPERIMENTATION AND REINVENTION
#Bowie80
NEW YORK OCTOBER 5th - DAVID BOWIE - BOWIE80 is a celebration of one of the world’s most influential artists, whose impact can be seen, heard and felt across all forms of art and in mainstream and outsider culture spanning both the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Starting today and continuing throughout 2027, the year of Bowie’s 80th birthday, there will be special events, releases, anniversaries, collaborations and fan experiences all over the globe, exclusively announced via a specific site, bowie80.davidbowie.com, all branded with the new Bowie80 logo.
The first new initiative is an exclusive partnership with US-based premium department store Nordstrom, celebrating Bowie's enduring influence on fashion through three immersive shops in their Seattle, NYC, and Chicago flagships, and Nordstrom.com, featuring exclusive and limited-edition collections created specifically to launch the Bowie campaign. The shops will include clothing and accessories from designers and brands such as Undercover, Marc Jacobs, Paul Smith, AllSaints, and more.
In addition, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is planning a Bowie80 celebration anchored by a dedicated retail pop-up running mid-November through January across its Museum store, online shop, and airport location. The Rock Hall will also host fan activations throughout David's birthday weekend, including Bowie-themed educational presentations, trivia, music, and photo ops, alongside an exhibition featuring the work of iconic rock & roll photographers, some of which has never been seen. Exhibit and programming details will be announced in the coming months.
Morrison Hotel Gallery will mark David Bowie’s 80th year with Strange Fascination, a major photography exhibition celebrating the artistry, evolution and fearless reinvention of one of the most photographed and visually transformative figures in modern culture. The exhibition will open early February 2027 in New York City and West Hollywood, bringing together career-defining and previously unreleased photographs from the celebrated archives of Morrison Hotel Gallery and the David Bowie estate. Spanning Bowie’s remarkable career, the exhibition will offer an intimate visual journey through six definitive eras, identities and reinventions that helped define his extraordinary influence on music, fashion, art and culture. Additional details, including participating photographers, will be announced in January.
BOWIE (breaking) GLASS is a new live symphonic concert production, developed by Schirmer Theatrical together with Østre Gasværk Teater, bringing David Bowie’s iconic songs and voice into a bold new musical and visual dialogue with Philip Glass. Featuring Bowie’s original recordings alongside live vocalists, musicians and orchestra, this official concert experience will have its world premiere in Copenhagen in Spring 2027. Online at BowieBreakingGlass.com.
Perryscope Productions, longtime merchandising representatives for David Bowie, will be launching exclusive Bowie80 merchandise in the official David Bowie webstore found at DavidBowie.com, and the official David Bowie Amazon store effective immediately. Additionally, new and longtime David Bowie apparel & accessories licensees including Phix, Rockoff, Rowdy Sprout, Roots of Fight, Stoned Immaculate, Girl Skateboards and more will be rolling out fresh Bowie & Bowie80 themed products throughout the anniversary year.
The acclaimed show David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, which opened at London's Lightroom this year, will reach new audiences in 2027, with runs in Manchester and Brighton, as well as its first European venue, Port des Lumières in Hamburg, launching as part of Bowie80 - with more to follow. Through iconic performances, rarely seen interviews, and never-before-exhibited material, David Bowie: You’re Not Alone uses huge screens and state-of-the-art audio to explore the artist's life and career.
The V&A’s David Bowie : On Tour will see artefacts from Bowie’s 90,000-item archive touring the UK starting in Dundee before moving on to Blackpool in 2027, before visiting further venues in 2028 & 2029.
Throughout the remainder of 2026 and throughout 2027, there will be more announcements, including groundbreaking audiovisual presentations, experiences, and fan-centric activities worldwide.
SPECIAL EVENTS, RELEASES, FAN EXPERIENCES & MORE
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION VISIT bowie80.davidbowie.com
ABOUT DAVID BOWIE
David Bowie (1947-2016) revolutionised popular music and culture through five decades of fearless experimentation and reinvention.
Between the late 1960s and mid-1970s, Bowie pioneered multi-media performance art while recording groundbreaking albums including Space Oddity (1969), The Man Who Sold The World (1970), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), Aladdin Sane (1973), Diamond Dogs (1974), Young Americans (1975), and Station to Station (1976). His single "Fame" from Young Americans became his first US No. 1 hit.
In 1976, Bowie relocated to Berlin, where he collaborated with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti on the influential "Berlin Trilogy": Low (1977), “Heroes" (1977), and Lodger (1979). In 1979 and 1980, he made his Broadway debut in The Elephant Man and released Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) with Visconti, followed by the Nile Rodgers-produced Let's Dance (1983).
Throughout the mid-1980s and early 1990s, Bowie formed the band Tin Machine, collaborated with dance company La La La Human Steps, and composed music for Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia (1993). In 1992, he created Jump, one of rock's first CD-ROMs (Enhanced CD). Reuniting with Eno in 1995, he produced the experimental Outside, followed by Earthling (1997) and 'hours...' (1999). That same year, he was honoured as Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
In 2002, Bowie collaborated again with Tony Visconti on Heathen, performing the album in full alongside the seminal Low during European and American tours. Reality followed in 2003, launched with the world's largest interactive live-by-satellite event, followed by the critically acclaimed "A Reality Tour."
Bowie's film credits include iconic roles in Nic Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983), Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Tony Scott's The Hunger(1983), and Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (2006).
In May 2007, he curated the inaugural 10-day High Line Festival in New York. The following month, he received the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for pioneering the intersection of art and technology. Later that year, he starred as himself in an acclaimed episode of Ricky Gervais's HBO series Extras.
In 2012, a plaque was erected on Heddon Street, London, the site of the Ziggy Stardust album cover, commemorating his extraordinary influence. That same year following year, the Victoria and Albert Museum received unprecedented access to the David Bowie Archive for a groundbreaking exhibition that broke attendance records in London, the US, Berlin, and Paris.
On January 8, 2013, Bowie surprised the world by releasing "Where Are We Now?" and announcing The Next Day, his 30th studio album and first in 10 years. The album received universal critical acclaim. In 2014, the compilation Nothing Has Changed celebrated his 50th year in music, followed by the experimental "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" with the Maria Schneider Orchestra and "Tis a Pity She Was a Whore."
Spring 2015 brought Lazarus, an off-Broadway production co-created with playwright Enda Walsh and directed by Ivo van Hove, which later transferred to London's Kings Cross Theatre.
★ (Blackstar), Bowie's 28th studio album, was released on his 69th birthday, January 8, 2016. Co-produced with Visconti and featuring saxophonist Donny McCaslin and his quartet, ★ received overwhelming critical acclaim, among the best reviews of Bowie's entire career. It became his first album to reach No. 1 in the US, topped charts in over 20 countries, and later won five Grammy Awards.
On January 10, 2016, David Bowie died peacefully, surrounded by his family, after an 18-month battle with cancer. His body of work, multi-generational influence, and legacy of fearless innovation and endless reinvention continue to inspire artists and audiences worldwide.