Leigh Bowery - Looks

FERGUS GREER: LEIGH BOWERY - LOOKS © Fergus Greer © Fergus 7 MARCH - 27 APRIL MICHAEL HOPPEN GALLERY Leigh Bowery, Session I, Look 2, 1988 Leigh Bowery, FERGUS GREER: LEIGH BOWERY - LOOKS All press enquiries | [email protected] | +44 (0)20 7139 8646 Leigh Bowery (1961-1994) was the ultimate designed and, in the photographs, worn by him. performance artist, fashion designer, nightclub sensation, art object, aspiring pop-star and above One of Britain’s most heroically ambitious all an icon whose influence traversed music, art, performance artists, Bowery remains an inspiration film and fashion worlds. to many contemporary fashion designers today and in the exhibition, Fergus Greer: Leigh Bowery – Perhaps he is best-known for his role as a nude Looks, you can easily see why. model for some of Lucian Freud’s most iconic paintings; ironic for the man who was infamous Over 15 photographs will be showcased, from an for his costumes. extraordinary body of work which was the outcome of Bowery’s collaboration with British photographer, Bowery arrived in London in 1980 from Sunshine, Fergus Greer, between 1988 and 1994, the year Australia, collaborated notoriously with the Bowery passed away. dancer Michael Clark, and was proprietor of the infamous 1980s Soho nightclub, ‘Taboo’. These inspired portrait photographs, in colour and in black and white, are the manifestation of In the 1990s, he created performances which Greer’s enduring relationship with a unique artist. both delighted and outraged audiences in His powerful work gives rich access to the colourful, New York, London and Tokyo, and it is these ever-changing and unpredictable man, and have enactments which are captured in LEIGH captured for posterity the inspiration behind BOWERY – LOOKS, at the Michael Hoppen Bowery’s improvisation and the chameleon-like Gallery, March 7th – April 27th, 2019. nature of his personality. “No amount of film could fully capture the many Michael Hoppen Galllery are thrilled to be facets of Leigh’s art”. – Fergus Greer presenting a selection photographs by Fergus Greer, of Leigh Bowery, on the ground floor of the gallery This exhibition, curated 25 years after Leigh from March 7th- April 27th, 2019. Bowery’s passing, is a beguiling guide to the looks .

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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.
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