Leigh Bowery
| Leigh Bowery | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
26 March 1961 Sunshine, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 31 December 1994 (aged 33) London, England |
| Occupation | performance artist, fashion designer, club promoter, actor, and model |
| Years active | 1980–1994 |
| Spouse(s) | Nicola Bateman (married 13 May 1994) |
Leigh Bowery (26 March 1961 – 31 December 1994) was a London-based performance artist, club promoter, and designer. He was also a significant model for the English painter, Lucian Freud. Bowery was born 26 March 1961 in Sunshine, Australia, a suburb of Melbourne. He studied music, played piano, and in Melbourne he studied fashion and design.
In Australia, he began to feel that he didn't fit well with his conservative surroundings, and became interested in London and the New Romantic club scene while reading British fashion magazines. Bowery then moved to London, where he worked in a clothing shop, did some commercials for Pepe jeans, and created promos for musical artists, including a promo for David Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes" video. He soon became an influential and lively figure in the underground clubs of London and New York, as well as in art and fashion circles. He attracted attention by wearing wildly outlandish and creative outfits of his own making. He became friends and roommates with two others, Guy Barnes (known as "Trojan") and David Walls. Bowery created costumes for them to wear, and this trio became known in the clubs as the "Three Kings."
He was known as a club promoter, and created the club called "Taboo", which began as an underground party, and then opened as a club in 1985. Taboo soon became "the place to be" with long queues for those waiting to get in. Drugs, particularly ecstasy, became a part of the dancing scene for the attendees. Taboo was known for defying sexual convention, for embracing "polysexualism", for its wild atmosphere, and for its sometimes unexpected song selections.
As a fashion designer he had several collections and shows in London, New York and Tokyo. He has influenced designers and artists. He was known for wildly creative costumes, makeup, wigs and headgear, all of which combined to be striking and inventive and often kitschy or beautiful.
He also designed costumes for the Michael Clark Dance Company. When that company performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1987, Bowery won a Bessie Award for his work on "No Fire Escape in Hell".
As a performance artist he enjoyed creating the costumes, and often shocking audiences. He first appeared at the Anthony D'Offay Gallery in London in 1988. In a signature performance, he would appear on stage in outlandish drag or other costume, looking very huge. He would sing and dance about. Then suddenly, much to the audience's surprise, he would drop onto his back and simulate giving birth to a petite and naked young woman, who was his friend and assistant Nicola Bateman. She had been hidden for the first part of the performance by being strapped to Leigh's belly with her face in his crotch. Then she would slip out of her harness, and appear to pop out of Bowery's belly along with a lot of stage blood and links of sausages, while Bowery wailed. Bowery would then bite off the umbilical cord and the two would take a bow. Boy George said he saw it a number of times, and that it "never ceased to impress or revolt".
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