Credit: This Ain’t Rock’n’RollA U.K. artist collective called This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll has announced plans to erect a memorial sculpture paying tribute to David Bowie in Brixton, the London district where the late rock legend was born. The striking structure will be about 30-feet tall and will be a giant three-dimensional depiction of the blue-and-red lightning bolt that’s painted on Bowie’s face on the cover of his 1973 album Aladdin Sane.
The sculpture, which has the support of the local council, is being created in consultation with Bowie’s team in New York and London. The proposed piece, which has been nicknamed the ZiggyZag, will be located on Tunstall Road in central Brixton next to a popular Bowie mural and five blocks from the singer’s birthplace.
An international crowd-funding campaign has been launched at CrowdFunder.co.uk that’s seeking to raise 990,000 pounds, or about $1.2 million, to help pay for the memorial. Among the many incentives available to people who donate are specially created Bowie-themed prints, pendants, badges and T-shirts. The campaign runs until noon local time on March 21.
This Ain’t Rock’n’Roll artist Charlie Waterhouse says of the sculpture, “It’s a monument that’s at once baffling yet immediately familiar — a reminder that there’s always another narrative. Startling, stupid and utterly joyous in equal measure this is a piece of public art that the whole community can be proud of. It’s totally Brixton, utterly Bowie. Where the Man Who Fell to Earth fell to earth, a heartfelt tribute, from one London character to another.”
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