The Art World: In Other Words, The Man Behind Bowie: the V&A’s Geoffrey Marsh

Almost two million people so far have visited the blockbuster exhibition “David Bowie Is”, on show now at the Brooklyn Museum (until 15 July).

The exhibition was masterminded by Geoffrey Marsh, the director of London's Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) theater and performing arts department. He has organized several other major “immersive” exhibitions, harnessing state-of-the-art audio and visuals to tell narratives in new ways, such as “You Say You Want A Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970” (2016-17) and “Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains” (2017).

He joins our host Charlotte Burns in London to talk about combing through Bowie’s collection to tell the story of how this music legend evolved.

Marsh also talks about how new technologies—specifically augmented reality—are about to change the ways in which exhibitions are curated and experienced, as well as the role of the museum itself.

He also discusses his dream exhibition: “a show so powerful that probably 10% of people would walk out because they hated it. For the other 90%, it would have had a very profound effect. I know it’s possible,” Marsh says. Pointing out that most people can remember seeing their first dinosaur skeleton in museums, he believes there is “something hardwired into us about profound visual experiences which, in a weird way, I think we may have lost in museums and galleries.” That sense of curiosity and wonder is something Marsh is working to bring back as we enter what he calls a “golden age of museums being able to engage with completely new publics in different ways”.

“In Other Words” is a presentation of AAP and Sotheby’s, produced by Audiation.fm.