CAMP: "A cornucopia of frivolity, incongruity, theatricality, and humour." "A deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love." "The lie that tells the truth." "Ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to or characteristic of homosexuals."
When Charles Trenet passed away in early 2001, France reacted almost as dramatically as America did following Frank Sinatra's death nearly three years earlier: it was a time of national mourning. Tributes filled the TV, and nothing but Trenet songs were heard on the radio.
He was a prophet so honored in his native land that not even the rumors that he was both a homosexual (apparently true) and, far more worrisome, a collaborator with the Nazis during World War II (probably not true, but it's complicated) could temper the national enthusiasm for the man, who was billed as "Le Fou Chantant" (the Singing Fool).
The advent of rock and roll dimmed his star, but he was back in 1969 with a concert to celebrate 30 years on the stage. By his last performance, in November 1999, he was established as an official national treasure, and singer-songwriters such as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg acknowledged their debt.
Trenet recognised that his real strength derived from his contact with ordinary life. He once said: "I find my poetry in the street." That view was endorsed by one of his old collaborators, Serge Hureau. He said: "Trenet's death reminds us that he belongs to our collective memory, not like a monument but like the cafe on the corner."
David Bowie is boasts the perfect balance of historical interrogation and compelling declaration of a man with nothing to declare except his sequinned genes. A man who sold the world and lived to tell the tale: this is the definitive display of the world’s most revered chameleon, comedian, Corinthian and caricature, in all his slash-backed splendour...
...every piece plays an intrinsic role in the storytelling process – be it the guitar the 16-year-old singer played when he was still known as Davey Jones, to a pocket-size metal spoon carried on Bowie’s person for the sole purpose of consuming cocaine. On entering the stimulating realm of the Thin White Duke, we are met by the famous Kansai Yamamoto bodysuit created for Aladdin Sane (just one of multiple personae developed by the singer as catalysts for his expressive excesses). The exhibition showcases Bowie’s almost pathological need to reinvent and rediscover himself: tortured mime, cracked actor, artistic tricoteur, always ready and waiting to pounce on the next dynamic creative wave.
