‘A living, breathing work of art’: Leigh Bowery by those who knew him best The performance artist shocked 1980s London with his surreal outfits, outlandish lifestyle and collaborations with Lucian Freud, dancer Michael Clark and others.
Today, 30 years after his death, Bowery remains on the margins, but his influence is palpable everywhere, from the high camp melodrama of Ru Paul’s Drag Race to the extravagant costumes worn by modern pop stars including Lady Gaga.
Throughout, he created a succession of elaborate looks that included decorating his cherubic face with polka dots, dripping brightly coloured paint over his gleaming bald head, encasing his body in thick foam costumes that exaggerated his bigness, squeezing into tightly bound basques and covering his entire body, including his face, with dazzlingly patterned material.
“As soon as they were over, he would stuff his face with about 10 burgers, which undid his good work.” his close friend Sue Tilley recalls in her fly-on-the-wall, gossip-drenched book, Leigh Bowery: The Life and Times of an Icon.
“Just having Leigh Bowery’s work in Tate Modern rather than a fashion or design museum is a way of reimagining him.
