David Bowie’s massive 80,000-piece archive donated to the Museum of London – Rolling Stone

Gigsbert Hanekreut / Redferns

David Bowie’s archive of more than 80,000 items has been gifted to Britain’s Victoria and Albert Museum, the London Foundation announced Thursday, according to The Guardian. AP.

The extensive archive contains costumes, photographs, letters, musical instruments and more from the musician’s estate and will be on display in 2025 at the David Bowie Center for the Study of the Performing Arts in Stratford. The new building, also unveiled today, is an extension of V&A’s East Storehouse and is being built on the site of the 2012 London Olympics.

According to the announcement, the collection covering David Bowie’s illustrious career also includes “more intimate writings, thought processes and unrealized projects, most of which have never been seen in public.”

The museum has received a £10 million ($12 million) donation from the Blavatnik Family and Warner Music Group to store and display Bowie’s archive at the new location in east London.

Items in the archive were also part of the “David Bowie Is” exhibit that toured the world from 2013 to 2018, according to the report, and include a multicolored Ziggy Stardust jumpsuit designed by Freddie Burretti, Kansai Yamamoto’s creations for Aladdin Sane’s 1973 tour, a Union Jack Bowie coat, and Alexander McQueen designed the covers for the 1997 “Earthling” album.

In April, Peter Murphy will be back on the road for David Bowie’s Celebration Tour alongside guitarist Adrian Belew, Spacehog’s Royston Langdon, Perfect Circle bassist Matt McJunkins, guitarist Scrote, Devo/A Perfect Circle drummer Jeff Friedl, saxophonist Ron Dziubla, and bassist Eric Schermerhorn. It begins April 4 in Houston, Texas, and ends May 8 in Tacoma, Washington.

The tour, helmed by Scrote, has been an ongoing project since 2017. According to a press release, this year’s show will “interpret Bowie’s greatest hits with a special focus on Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust proto-punk era, his Berlin triple records (a littleAnd ChampionsAnd tenant) and his later years at Trent Reznor”.