Immersive David Bowie exhibition to offer close-up of ‘the man behind the masks’

A transportive David Bowie exhibition will guide fans through the creative genius and performances of the late artist.

David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, will be held at the immersive art space Lightroom and is written and directed by Mark Grimmer, director of the V&A’s Bowie Is exhibition, as well as Lightroom’s David Hockney exhibition, Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away).

Included in the event is rare “holy grail” footage of Bowie performing his song “Heroes” at Earl’s Court in 1978, which was pieced together by a team given access to new camera angles discovered on film reels in his archives.

The show opens in April at Lightroom in King’s Cross, London, and will also contain Bowie’s final performance as Ziggy Stardust at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, along with renditions of “Space Oddity” and “Diamond Dogs”.

Organisers were able to combine the footage with photography, drawings, lyrics, personal notes and other recordings from Bowie’s staggering personal archive, while interviews he gave over the course of his career provide the narration.

The announcement said that the show will focus on “the man behind the masks”, so instead of assessing Bowie’s legend through personas such as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane or The Thin White Duke, it will make a study out of “the provocateur, the polymath, the shapeshifting icon in his enduring, human form”.

“It says something about our relationship with artistic heroes that we're drawn to mystery, otherness, the alien...,” Mr Grimmer said in a statement. “In Bowie's case, this is our construct, not his. Throughout his career, Bowie repeatedly resisted being figured as anything but human.

“Rather than undermining his mystique, we designed a show to celebrate Bowie as a champion of human creativity – focusing on the message he expressed time and time again: that art, in all its forms, is our best hope for understanding what it means to be alive.”

Tickets for the exhibition are on sale now and will be available from 22 April until 28 June, with more tickets scheduled to be released for summer.

Last year, the V&A opened its East Storehouse-based David Bowie Centre, comprising more than 90,000 items from Bowie’s archive – including handwritten lyrics, musical instruments, costumes and set designs.

Bowie died aged 69 on 10 January 2016, two days after releasing his 25th and final album, Blackstar.