>David Bowie

FAME, FAME

David Bowie sold nearly all of the canvases at his first solo art exhibition last April in London. Since then he has portrayed Andy Warhol in an upcoming biopic on the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and embarked on a mostly sold-out, six-week tour with Nine Inch Nails. "I don't buy into the idea that one just does work, and you don't really care if it's ever heard or seen," says the London-born Bowie, 48, who now lives in Switzerland with his wife of three years, model Iman. (Bowie and his first wife, Angie Barnet, divorced in 1980.) "That's not true at all. I'm terribly competitive, so I do like it to be heard."

How did you hook up with Nine Inch Nails?

I'd read in interviews with [NIN lead singer] Trent [Reznor] that he's been listening to a lot of the work that Brian [Eno] and I had done together and to works of mine like Station to Station and, especially, the Scary Monsters album. And that, in fact, the Low album was something he played almost daily while he was making The Downward Spiral. That sort of spurred me to get in touch with him and say, "Look, hey, I'd love to do a tour, and I'd love, specifically, to have you accompany me on this tour." What's been most exciting is that we get to work onstage together. I think we're really enjoying it tremendously.

How has marriage changed you?

It's affected the buoyancy I have toward life. Possibly, I'm a lot more gregarious than I used to be, and I don't feel quite as awkward, tongue-tied and shy as I might have been. I find that I'm an extremely happy person.