Leigh Bowery’s work deals with sexuality, sexual genders and gay condition. Bowery, with his characters, was creating a sort of confusion between genders; in wearing his clothes / creations he was giving life to creatures which were neither male nor female; his performances were meant to entertain and amuse the audience but at the same time he was transgressingtaboos,arousingrevulsion and objection.
I really feel so creep because I didn't know this artist before. I have vague memories of when, in the nineties, I saw his apparitions on TV. I read and saw (the documentary The legend of Leigh Bowery is really interesting!) a lot about Bowery since I recently discover him and honestly I wish I could write pages and pages on him on this blog. He is the personification of art!
"Bowery was a performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and designers."
"Bowery was a performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and designers."
"From being a plump, studious, and often bullied child, Leigh grew up to often be uncomfortable in his skin, and used his frequently bizarre designs as an armour for his insecurities. As he got larger he used his costumes to exaggerate his size, and the effect was frequently overpowering and unforgettable for those who encountered him, the more so because of his confrontational style."
"He collaborated with the famous 1980s dancer Michael Clark after having been first his costume-designer before eventually joining the company as a dancer. In 1988 he had a week-long show in a prestigious Dering Street Gallery in London's West End, in which he lolled on a chaise longue behind a two-way mirror, primping and preening in a variety of outfits while visitors to the gallery looked on. The insouciance and audacity of this overt queer narcissism captivated gallery goers, critics and other artists. He later excited the fashion crowd with a performance at SMact, a short-lived SM Night at Bar Industria. Using Nazi costumes with a lesbian friend named Barbara, they turned concentration camp experimentation into SMart. In 1993 Bowery formed the band Minty. One of their single was "Useless Man" "Boot licking, tit tweaking useless man..."
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