Costume drama: photographer Fergus Greer talks about capturing the bold, pioneering work of the late performance artist Leigh Bowery. (books).
He was a very big guy--somewhere around 6 foot 6, and in some of his outfits nearly 7 foot 6," says Fergus Greer, remembering gay Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery, who was his friend and collaborator. "He could be a very imposing figure, but he was a very sweet person, very soft-spoken. But intelligent, with a teasing, naughty sense of humor."In his new book, Leigh Bowery Looks (Violette Editions, $25), Greer comments that "no amount of film could fully capture the many facets of Leigh's art." But Greer's photos, which span the last six years of Bowery's life (Bowery died of AIDS complications in 1994), come close to doing just that. "Leigh wanted to break down people's preconceived ideas," Greer recalls of Bowery's wildly innovative designs, his love of challenging the visual limitations of the human form, and his often shocking antics. "He hated it when people couldn't look from any other viewpoint. There was a real resonance to his work."
When Greer met Bowery in 1988 after a performance by the latter at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery in London, the two men couldn't have seemed less alike. "I come from a very traditional background," says Greer, who is not gay. "The culture that Leigh traveled in was inherently gay, and my friends that introduced me to him were gay. I still don't know what they thought of how we would get along, what chemistry would be between us. But there was a chemistry between us, and we understood each other really well."
At the time, Greer was still developing his own vision as a photographer, and Bowery was just starting to receive greater recognition for his work. Up to that time Bowery's flamboyant performances had been primarily restricted to the London club scene, in which he was already famous for creating the legendary club Taboo.
Given Bowery's obsession with restrictive costumes, Greer found one experience in which he could relate with the artist. "I was in a guarding regiment for 4 1/2 years and a guard commander at Windsor Castle, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, and St. James Palace," he says. "As a guard, you might stand for six hours in a uniform. I suffered pain for costume, so I could appreciate where he was coming from."
Greer's straightforward images reveal the remarkable details and powerful presence of Bowery's handmade outfits. "He put so much effort into everything he did, every detail," Greer recalls. "It took him three hours to dress up. The outfits were very uncomfortable, very constricting. In some of them he couldn't even go to the loo. The way he dealt with his costumes, works of art, whatever you choose to perceive them as, he tackled them in a hugely disciplined way, almost in a military sense. It was a point of reference that I could use, and that excited me a lot."
As historically specific as it is, Bowery's work is timeless in its defiance of categorization. "I wouldn't put it in a fashion context, because it wasn't related to fashion at the time," says Greer, "but I think fashion designers took elements of what he was doing and used them, like [Jean Paul] Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Jasper Conrad. Leigh wasn't the sort of person who demanded credit. What he was doing was so far ahead. Leigh did it first."
Greer and Bowery met every three or four months, "whenever he'd gotten together a new range of costumes," says the photographer. "It was an on-going project, a record of his work that was to be part of his legacy."
Bowery's legacy will continue to find new audiences via Greer's new book, in conjunction with a traveling exhibit of Greer's portraits. In addition, a new documentary on Bowery's life and work by Charles Atlas, The Legend of Leigh Bowery, is slated to air on BBC.
Nearly a decade after the artist's final performances, most notably his bizarre and unforgettable appearance in Wigstock: The Movie and his work with his band Minty, interest in Bowery's work is "only increasing," Greer says. "People who write books on transgression, transsexual culture, books on fashion, they always want to include him, and I'm continually being asked to contribute--and I do. That is why we did the photos, so that his work can continue to be represented."
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| Author: | Harvey, Mark |
|---|---|
| Publication: | The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine) |
| Date: | Oct 29, 2002 |
| Words: | 719 |
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