A major touring exhibition featuring 100 items from the V&A’s extensive David Bowie archive is set to captivate fans across the UK. Titled David Bowie: On Tour, the showcase will include several pieces never before displayed publicly. It will launch at V&A Dundee, running from November until February 2027.
Highlights of the Exhibition
Highlights include original Ziggy Stardust costumes by Freddie Burretti and Kansai Yamamoto, tour sketches, and an acoustic guitar from that era. The exhibition will also feature Bowie’s keys from his apartment in Berlin, where he lived while recording the 1977 albums Low and Heroes.
Other notable items include the Natasha Korniloff-designed costume Bowie wore in the video for 1980 single “Ashes To Ashes”, a clapperboard used for the 1976 film The Man Who Fell To Earth, and his first instrument, a Grafton Alto saxophone bought for him by his father in 1961.
Partnership and Quotes
“David Bowie: On Tour is a landmark national partnership for the V&A, bringing highlights from David Bowie’s extraordinary archive to audiences across the UK for the first time,” V&A director Sir Tristram Hunt said. “Working with our colleagues in museums and venues nationwide, we’re opening up Bowie’s story in the places connected to his life and legacy, ensuring people across the country can experience these remarkable objects where they live, and be inspired by his enduring creativity.”
Tour Schedule
Following its debut in Scotland, the exhibition will move on to Showtown in Blackpool (June to September 2027), the Bowes Museum in County Durham (October 2027 to January 2028), the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull (February to May 2028), and Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (June to September 2028). Further venues are expected to be announced in due course.
Archive and Legacy
The David Bowie Centre opened at the V&A Storehouse in September 2025 as a home for the archive, which features a permanent display of artefacts. Widely considered one of the greatest artists of all time, Bowie achieved five UK number one singles and 11 UK number one albums during his lifetime. He is best known for songs such as “Space Oddity” and “Sound And Vision”.
Bowie was known for his drastic changes in sound and appearance during his career, beginning as a pop singer in the 1960s, before rising to major fame in the 1970s with the glam rock albums The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1972) and Aladdin Sane (1973). He embraced soul on Young Americans (1975) and Station To Station (1976), before plunging into krautrock influences on Low (1977), Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979). Bowie also ventured into dance and jazz, and collaborated with Queen, Mick Jagger, and Trent Reznor. He released his final album, Blackstar, on his 69th birthday, just two days before his death in 2016.
