From the Thin White Duke to Ziggy Stardust, the Berlin recluse to the late-career elegist, David Bowie’s oeuvre is defined by reinvention. As an artist he was relentlessly attuned to the conditions that might provoke the next creative rupture. One defining moment, however, has largely slipped from the popular imagination: a day spent inside a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Vienna – one that would prove unexpectedly formative.
In September 1994, Bowie and Brian Eno – who had reunited to develop new music – accepted an invitation from the Austrian artist André Heller to visit the Maria Gugging psychiatric clinic. The site’s Haus der Künstler, established in 1981 as a communal home and studio, is known internationally as a centre for Art Brut – or “Outsider Art” – produced by residents, many living with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.
