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Leigh Bowery

Leigh Bowery

Acting

Biography

Leigh Bowery was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, and fashion designer. Bowery was known for his flamboyant and outlandish costumes and makeup as well as his performances. Based in London for much of his adult life, he was a significant model and muse for the English painter Lucian Freud.

Known For

The Legend of Leigh Bowery
7.2

Welcome to the over-the-top, extravagant world of Leigh Bowery, a key figure in New Romanticism and London nightlife in the 1980s. With his bizarre outfits, a mix of kitsch and fetish, and his eccentric performances, he influenced artists, musicians and stylists like Boy George, Lucian Freud (of whom he became the muse), Vivienne Westwood, Anthony and the Johnsons, John Galliano and David LaChapelle. Born in Australia into an intensely religious family and brought up in a Melbourne suburb, Leigh moved to London where he worked as a fashion designer and a promoter, and started the legendary disco club night "Taboo", the first outrageous polysexual party in London. The documentary offers a fully rounded portrait of this artist, including interviews with the people who knew him, who describe a complex, extreme, and ironic personality, a performer, actor and designer ahead of his time, from his difficult early life to international success, up to his death in 1994.

The Legend of Leigh Bowery

2002Movie
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A gallery, divided in two by a wall with a large two-way mirror. Bowery appears on one side under a spotlight, only able to see his reflection. On the other side, the audience watches. Sounds of insects and the street outside can be heard. Different scents, like banana and marshmallow, fill the room. This was the set up of Bowery’s first performance in a gallery. In October 1988, he posed at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, for two hours each day, across five days. He wore a new look every day, selected from those he had worn over the last four years. The spots suit, checkerboard dress, and green feathery jacket were remade by designer and corsetier Mr Pearl (some of which are displayed in Room 2) due to the originals being covered in ‘disco dirt’. Bowery worked closely with the gallerist Lorcan O’Neill, who had invited him to perform, the artist Cerith Wyn Evans, who also filmed and edited the video documentation, and DJ Malcolm Duffy who worked on the sound.

Mirror

1988Movie