Exactly 50 years after music legend David Bowie brought his “Diamond Dogs” tour to Memphis, a sculptor invited the city to help construct a 10-foot statue of the late music legend.

Mike McCarthy held the Glam Rock Picnic at the Off the Walls Arts as a fundraiser for the first phase of the project on Sunday, June 30.

Art museum construction can continue Downtown, court rules

People donated money to help McCarthy create Aladdin Sane Weathervane. When they arrived, attendees got a piece of clay to add to the steel statue’s base, which was made of paper mache, spray foam and pool noodles.

The statue’s name honors Bowie’s sixth studio album, “Aladdin Sane,” which marked the end of Bowie’s musical identity, Ziggy Stardust, and the birth of Aladdin Sane. 

The statue prototype is of Bowie wearing his famous 1973 “Tokyo Pop” vinyl bodysuit, created by Japanese artist Kansai Yamamoto for Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane” tour.

The top of the statue features four-faced revolving weathervane-style heads that capture Bowie’s musical identities: Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, his eye-patched Halloween Jack persona from his 1974 album “Diamond Dogs” and the statue’s main inspiration “Tokyo Pop.”

Palladio lights up Central Avenue with Memphis artist’s neon sign

When completed, McCarthy wants to cast the sculpture in bronze and place it in Overton Park.

“Today is the 50th anniversary of Bowie performing ‘Diamond Dogs’ at the Mid-South Coliseum,” McCarthy said. “So, I thought why not try to unveil phase one of the sculpture today.”

McCarthy has been planning the statue’s construction since December 2023 and started work on it earlier this week. 

McCarthy is a graduate of Memphis Academy of Art, which became Memphis College of Art, before closing in 2020. He’s an independent filmmaker, with movie titles such as “Cigarette Girl” and “The Sore Losers,” a comic book author and an artist for Sculpt Memphis.

In 2019, he completed a life-sized bronze statue of Johnny Cash. The sculpture still stands on 999 S. Cooper St., where Cash played his first Memphis gig.

McCarthy imagines similar pieces throughout Memphis as landmarks of the city’s musical history and culture. 

Local nonprofit to redevelop Downtown buildings into multi-use art hubs

“I thought Bowie would be a good counterintuitive idea to bring people in, to promote the idea that we should have Howlin’ Wolf, Rufus Thomas, Memphis Minnie, Aretha Franklin (statues), you name it,” McCarthy said. “If there’s a Memphis connection, we should have those statues in Memphis.’'

Bowie’s ties to Memphis reach beyond his show at the Coliseum.

The star visited then-MCA on Feb. 26, 1973, at the invitation of the university’s educator, Dolph Smith. 

Smith invited Bowie and his backup band, The Spiders of Mars, to the campus and gifted the singer a watercolor painting.

At 91 years old, Smith was one of several attendees who added clay to the prototype. 

The Memphis music inspo behind new Tom Hardy/Austin Butler movie

“Bowie visited other cities,” McCarthy said. “He didn’t visit their art schools and receive gifts and write songs on the outskirts and things like that.

“Bowie reached a zenith of his career that year, 1973. And at that point, Memphis was a vital touring place for international rock and roll stars. If you didn’t play Memphis, you weren’t anybody. And we kind of lost that tradition. And we need to get that back.”

McCarthy expects the project cost to be around $200,000. He expects to complete it in three phases over at least five years.

“It depends on how quickly people get behind it,” McCarthy said. “I’m going to be here at Off the Walls as much as I can, spending the money that we raise today to buy clay to cover the entire body of the sculpture, which is about 600 pounds of clay.”

New master metalsmith casts Black history in bronze, steel

McCarthy’s girlfriend Anneliese Jones was among many supporters at the community event. 

The Collierville native remembered how McCarthy’s vision for the statue started out as an idea at an IMAX movie theater that became a reality. 

“A lot of times, statues just crop up here and there, and people are like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s really great.’ But they don’t get to see the actual progress of it, the process of it coming to fruition.” Jones said. “And I just think it’s really, really great for Memphis, and I am absolutely amazed at Mike and very proud of what he’s done.”

Binghampton-based Brian Humphries attended the picnic to support his friend McCarthy and marveled at the statue’s presence.

“I think it’s kind of a tribute to well-known musicians and artists that have come here to recognize how important Memphis is to music and all forms of music,” he said.