Many, many pop artists have emphasized image because their content isn’t all that substantial. David Bowie was the rare one whose musical and personal aesthetic were both of the highest caliber and both were integral to his overall artistry. His image complimented the music; it never covered for the music. It is telling that Bowie’s blandest periods of personal style tended to coincide with his blandest music (see the “Dancing in the Streets” video).
So a photography book like David Bowie: Icon is just as integral a document of Bowie’s art as the Sound + Vision box set is. David Bowie: Icon covers every phase of the artist’s career, from his earliest days when Gerald Fearnley captured him as a bouffanted mod to a portrait from his final session helmed by Masayoshi Sukita.
The variety of styles—both personal and photographic—will be of no surprise to anyone mildly familiar with Bowie. He is mod, mime, glam, elegant elder statesman. The work is striking (Sukita), candid (Geoff MacCormack), painterly (Lynn Goldsmith), contrived (John Scorisbrick), live and vital (Chalkie Davies), always iconic. The surprise of David Bowie: Icon is how varied yet enlightening the text is. The 26 photographers whose work appears in this book contribute some personal memory of their subject. The writing can be poetic or feel pulled from an interview, but it almost always underlines the idea that Bowie may have styled himself like a starman but was disarmingly down to earth. So you may find yourself loving the alien more than ever after reading David Bowie: Icon.
