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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. even 24 years after his death. What for Culture Club inspired by what was happening in forgot him’ to visit the studio and not be seduced by similar site for free within earshot of Big Ben. Perhaps the most prominent sign made him so diff erent from the other (Boy George would wider society. “The dot face, for … Bowery at this pastoral utopia. Guy’s and St Thomas’ charity will likely of this re appraisal comes from 80s club kids? Partly his looks , which sometime lover Bateman seven co-write and star in a successful example, was a comment on Kaposi’s home in 1984 The architects began working pro bono on sell the site for development to generate Australian choreographer Andy are still strikingly original. As the months before his death.) musical about Bowery). His career sarcoma ” – the cancer which caused plans for London’s most central urban farm in much-needed income for the hospital. But, Howitt , who is bringing Sunshine impresario of Taboo, he wore a But Bowery’s creativity was not resists categorisation. Asked what the facial lesions that struck many 2013, when Feilden’s brother was planning an while there are no concrete plans, it would be Boy, a new show about the nightlife diff erent, jaw-dropping outfi t every con fi ned to clubs. He worked with he most deplored in others by Aids suff erers in the 80s. “His work outpost for his charity, Jamie’s Farm, which a tragedy if the farm was razed and the site legend, to the Edinburgh fringe this week. There was the shiny PVC mask the dancer and choreographer the Guardian in 1993, Bowery was about things like body image or takes disadvantaged city kids on residential became a fenced-off dump for years , waiting summer. “I was at the National and matching catsuit, with one Michael Clark , creating costumes replied: “The urge to categorise: illnesses – and those things haven’t trips to farms in the countryside. Teaming up for the developers to arrive. Gallery in Melbourne and there was larger leg as if in plaster. There was and co-starring in his performances. if you label me, you negate me.” gone away. It confronts you and with the charity Oasis they secured the plot a big sculpture that said, ‘By Leigh the polka dot suit worn with polka He appeared in the windows of the Perhaps Boy George came up with frightens you and makes you think. on a “meanwhile lease” from Guy’s and St Bowery from Sunshine ’,” he says. dot face. There were the lightbulbs Anthony d’Off ay Gallery , wearing the most accurate description It’s very disruptive, to use a word Thomas’ charity . The architects became so “I was like, ‘That can’t be the Leigh he’d wear on either side of his face, a diff erent outfi t each day of the when he described Bowery as of the moment.” enveloped in the project they decided to move Bowery from the 80s dance scene.’ the coloured drips that would cover week . He fronted a band, Minty, and “modern art on legs” . He turned There is a clear line from their offi ce to the half-acre site . It sparked me on a journey to fi nd his bald head, the merkin he’d place – perhaps most famously – modelled himself, his body and his image Bowery to the performers and The result is a radical realisation of “mixed out about the man.” over his genitals. And then there nude several times for Freud . On into an art object, one that walked punters exploring extreme looks use”, a slippery term that all too often means Bowery did indeed hail from was his wife, Nicola Bateman, worn the back of the Freud connection, among us as well as appear ed on today. Glyn Fussell is the founder a Tesco Metro with fl ats on top. But here Sunshine, a suburb of Melbourne naked and strapped upside-down Bowery hit the mainstream from stages and in gallery windows. of Sink the Pink, a playground for the it means a studio of well-dressed young with around 10,000 inhabitants. to his chest. (Although Bowery various directions. He appeared in “People are always telling me artistic side of drag culture. He says designers just a plywood wall away from a Howitt visited it and spoke to his described himself as gay, he married a Pepe Jeans commercial and about the time they saw him,” says that while the twentysomethings dungheap, with a chance to do some weeding PHOTOGRAPHS: MARK BAKER/PHOTOSHOT/GETTY IMAGES; STEVE IMAGES; MARK BAKER/PHOTOSHOT/GETTY PHOTOGRAPHS: IMAGES FREUD ARCHIVE/BRIDGEMAN LUCIAN PYKE/GETTY; family , a s well as to those in London his longtime companion and guested on The Clothes Show on Sue Tilley , Bowery’s friend and the who come to the London club PICTURES LTD PETER COOK/VIER and check on the chicks during coff ee breaks.

The Guardian The Guardian 10 Monday 13 August 2018 Monday 13 August 2018 11