David Bowie: artist and entrepreneur?

In the last years, entrepreneurship scholars devoted more and more attention to entrepreneurship in the arts. The figure of the artist-entrepreneur is particularly debated, wondering whether he has any peculiar characteristics and whether he is able to reconcile entrepreneurial and artistic spheres of action. Drawing on entrepreneurship literature and on the emerging arts entrepreneurship literature, this paper aims at exploring the figure of the arts entrepreneur, highlighting the possible co-existence of the artist and the entrepreneur. Following a qualitative approach, we consider the case of David Bowie, focusing on the period 1964-2016. We draw on secondary data. Data sources are: interviews, the official website, the official social media pages, documentaries. We demonstrate not only that the artist can be an entrepreneur, but also that the artistic and entrepreneurial spheres of action are not in conflict, but instead they are mixed and feed each other.