Sex, Sin and Sausages
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Section:GDN 12 PaGe:10 Edition Date:180813 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 10/8/2018 17:53 cYanmaGentaYellowbl Section:GDN 12 PaGe:11 Edition Date:180813 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 10/8/2018 17:53 cYanmaGentaYellowbl • • Arts appeared, naked, in makeup His band Minty’s similar to blackface, for a Minty Design a penthouse – then feed the pigs publicity photo. residency was cut This preoccupation with the short after Bowery extreme off ended plenty of people . Clark stopped working with Bowery Why is this architecture fi rm so successful? Maybe it’s because chicks, A new jaw- ‘vomited’ vegetable when he insisted on wearing a dropping outfi t soup into his wife’s costume with “a cunt” written on it . lambs and pigs are part of the team. Oliver Wainwright reports every week … Minty saw their residency at the Bowery; left, in mouth on stage Soho club Freedom cut short one of Lucian because of a show that involved Freud’s paintings Bowery “vomiting” vegetable probably haven’t heard of soup into Bateman’s mouth . Bowery, his infl uence is present. Perhaps Bowery’s work was “ You see it in fashion, you see it in radical satire, all part of a life lived Off to the pig palace … the underground, you see it in without taboos. Shocking people the practice’s HQ at mainstream culture, in – and perhaps waking them up – Oasis Farm Waterloo; RuPaul’s Drag Race.” was the ultimate aim. Speaking below, feeding time It is in fashion that Bowery’s about a show at an Aids benefi t, infl uence is most explicit. Rick in which he had an enema on Owens’ “human backpack” stage that sprayed the front row, collection in 2015 was a tribute he said: “I was quite pleased with to Bowery carrying Bateman like the hostile reaction. If I have to a papoose. Menswear designer ask, ‘Is this idea too sick?’ I know Charles Jeff rey runs a club called I am on the right track.” Loverboy that stages shows verging “The idea,” says Pugh, “ was to on performance art , much like wilfully do things that get a rise out Bowery’s. And, with his fl oral gowns of people . He had this idea of and matching face masks, Richard something that is bereft of control, Quinn , the young London designer for good or for bad.” who had the Queen in attendance “I don’t think he was setting out ambs are bleating, pigs are Client meetings are sometimes disrupted by at his February show, has clearly with a racist heart,” says Fussell . snuffl ing and a chicken is armies of children in hi -vis, popping over from been inspired by Bowery. “ He was challenging the status quo . wandering about between the local primary school . For Gareth Pugh , Bowery is a It was about challenging what he planters spilling over with Oasis Farm Waterloo is a world away from Sex, sin and consistent reference. The designer was seeing on the streets and tomatoes and courgettes. All the usual city farm scenes full of shipping fi rst learned about him in Fergus making it hyper-realised.” this is just a short walk from the containers and gazebos. A low wall of rusty Greer’s 2002 book Leigh Bowery Howitt’s 40-minute show will Lteetering towers of Southbank Place , where red sheeting runs along the facade of the fi rm’s Looks : “If you go into any suburban cover Bowery’s triumphs, disasters £10m apartments are rising behind the London offi ce, conceived as a mixture of artist’s studio art college you’ll always fi nd that and premature death. Bowery found Eye . But there’s a diff erent type of regeneration and farm shed, with tilted north-lights and a sausages book in the fashion section.” Bowery out he was HIV positive in 1988 and going on in this city farm, which sits on a sliver mono-pitched roof . Next door stands the “pig is inspirational, he believes, because died six years later, not long before of land in Lambeth, between the tangled tracks palace” and chicken coop, along with raised he “ created his own language. That’s combination therapies greatly of Waterloo station and the slabs of St Thomas’ accessible fl owerbeds, an outdoor kitchen and Leigh Bowery was a 1980s nightclub legend whose the golden fl eece for any fashion prolonged the lives of those with the hospital. Today the animals are going about a composting toilet, all arranged around a path shocking shows thrilled – and appalled. Two decades designer: to fi nd something they disease. “A lot of people say that if he their business while young architects are that culminates in the barn. can be known for 30 years down had survived another month, he toiling away in a studio at the other end of the Drawing on the tradition of stately tithe after his death, why is his infl uence still so pervasive? the line – and for it to be so iconic.” would have been OK,” says Howitt. site from a great wooden barn. barns, it is a simple wooden-framed structure Lauren Cochrane talks to those who knew him best Of course, some elements of Tilley often fi nds herself “The name Lambeth originally means with an imposing presence. Great zinc doors Bowery’s work haven’t aged so well , wondering what Bowery might have ‘landing place for lambs,’ ” says architect slide open to reveal a church-like interior, with driven by his relentless desire to achieved had he lived longer. “He Fergus Feilden. “So it’s sort of fi tting that we’ve a central nave marked by rows of columns and e was painted naked who had known him. “You have Bowery BBC One, taking tea author of Leigh Bowery: The Life shock. One of his most infamous had a lot of irons in the fi re, but he brought them back here.” Many architects criss-crossing trusses, while the side aisles are and sprawling by to remember his backstory,” says ‘giving in Harrods dressed and Times of an Icon . “It was looks was called “Pakis from Outer died before anything properly have a yearning for the primitive hut, but few strewn with straw bales . In a poetic fl ourish, a Lucian Freud . He Howitt . “He only lived in London for birth’ in a succession of probably only once, but he made Space” , inspired by the Asian happened,” she says. Bowery may, can boast pigs outside the window of their mulberry tree pokes through the fl o o r . “gave birth” to his 14 years . He sold up shop at 19 or 20 to his astonishing get-ups such an impact they have never communities near where Bowery she muses, have gone “ down the offi ce . “It does lead to some awkward phone The power of coming across this unlikely own wife on stage, and went straight there and became wife to the soundtrack forgotten it.” DJ Princess Julia met lived in the East End and involving path of reality television”. After all, calls,” Feilden adds. “ Clients ask what the oasis in one of London’s most overheated using sausages the icon.” Howitt fed his fi ndings of his hero, the Bowery in the early 80s , both part blue faces, bindis and nose rings. she concludes : “He would have been grunting noise is in the background.” enclaves of riverside property speculation is H as an umbilical cord. And he was into Sunshine Boy, telling the story drag star Divine . of a crowd that included artist Cerith He made blouses out of material brilliant on Big Brother.” His practice Feilden Fowles , which he made all the more poignant by its imminent the star turn in Taboo, perhaps the of Bowery’s life through dance, Bowery also Wyn Evans, Boy George, Clark, bearing swastikas, used rags stolen founded in 2009 with Edmund Fowles, is destruction. The charities signed a fi ve- most debauched nightclub Britain spoken word passages , music – engaged in more and Bowery’s friend and frequent from Jewish artist Freud’s studio Sunshine Boy is at Dance Base, one of London’s rising stars with a portfolio year lease in 2014, which means it expires has ever seen, hosting the revelry and those showstopping costumes . conventional creative co-star Trojan . Julia says Bowery, to make an image of Hitler and Edinburgh, 21-26 August. that spans schools, Oxbridge colleges and in January next year. Before the farm came with his face painted blue, his The performance ranges from his work. He was an art who started off working at Burger a new visitors’ centre for the Yorkshire along, this land had been a dumping ground . nose and nipples pierced and his childhood to the Taboo years and director on the 1991 King to make ends meet , quickly Sculpture Park, as well as a factory for Charlie It has since become a thriving community outfi t as intimidatingly outlandish then to his death from Aids in video for Massive became a fi xture on the scene: Bigham’s ready meals – recently voted Riba asset . With the temporary lifespan always in as possible. But there was much 1994 at the age of 33. Attack’s Unfi nished “He was very infl uential because South West building of the year . That’s mind, all of the structures have been designed more to Leigh Bowery than sheer As Sunshine Boy suggests, Sympathy , a stylist he was very inventive. H e was quite a crop to emerge from a farmyard, yet with bolted joints, allowing them to be outrageousness – and his range, Bowery remains a larger-than-life for Rifat Özbek , always coming up with ideas.” the unlikely setting of their HQ has helped: relocated, but much of the cost has been in its daring and infl uence are being persona in underground culture, a costume designer His looks, she says, were often ‘People never it would be hard for any prospective client construction – and it won’t be easy to fi nd a appreciated by a new generation.