Spotify Honors Bowie with NY Subway takeover
Spotify is giving music lovers the opportunity to go on a journey through the immersive David Bowie Subway Takeover exploring the musician's influence on music, fashion, culture, and the city that he loved.
Music streaming service, Spotify, has transformed a New York Subway station with a large-scale photographic installation and interactive displays celebrating the late, great David Bowie.
The interactive exhibit commandeers walls, displays and even ceilings at the busy Broadway-Lafayette station, drawing attention to Bowie’s association with the surrounding neighborhood as well as the ‘David Bowie is…’ exhibition currently on show at Brooklyn Museum.
The centerpiece of the takeover is an installation created by Italian studio, Truly Design. The installation stretches across 30 metal 'L' beams and can be seen at either end of the station from steps leading down to the platform. It features black-and-white photographs of Bowie as the Thin White Duke – a persona he adopted in the mid 1970s – taken by Masayoshi Sukita and Markus Klinko.
Spotify has also installed fan art, a map of Bowie’s neighborhood and photographs of the musician around the station. These are displayed alongside orange banners that read ‘David Bowie is Here’ and information cards that highlight his affection for New York. Each card features a quote from Bowie – one focuses on his love of walking and quotes an interview with the New Yorker, where he cited Washington Square Gardens as one of his favorite spots for a stroll.
Completing the experience will be specially produced Metro cards depicting Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and Thin White Duke guises, marking two years since the stars passing.
In a statement Spotify wrote:
“Although he hailed from London, music icon David Bowie spent the majority of his life living in, and falling for, New York City. After moving across the pond, he was welcomed to the City with open arms, and soon came to call himself a New Yorker. In the way that Bowie discovered his adopted city, Spotify is giving music lovers the opportunity to go on a journey through the immersive David Bowie Subway Takeover exploring the musician's influence on music, fashion, culture, and the city that he loved.”
The exhibition debuted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2013 and is on display at the Brooklyn Museum until July 15. It features over 400 objects, including costumes, handwritten lyrics sheets and album art.
Alongside the installation, Spotify has created a podcast series titled David Bowie Stories. The series was created using its ‘Spotlight’ feature – a tool for creating podcasts with visual elements – and promises “an even deeper look into the life of the musical icon”, with “tall tales, origin stories, making of’s, mini essays and more”. It will also feature photos and videos from the David Bowie Archive. The series will be available through the Spotify app.
