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Leigh Bowery in The Study Room

To celebrate the launch of the Leigh Bowery exhibition at the Tate Modern, LADA has compiled a selection of rare archival documentation and related resources that live in our Study Room collection, including the film ‘Live Culture / Leigh Bowery at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery’ that features in the exhibition.

Performance artist, fashion designer, club promoter and legendary shape-shifter, Leigh Bowery constantly pushed against the boundaries of art and performance. His work stands as a playful, decadent and unruly challenge to sexuality and gender norms, employing a postmodern sensibility of excess and fluidity that positions the body as an ever-fluctuating canvas for his ideas. His influence continues to reverberate through performance art, visual art, fashion, drag, music and club culture today.

Below is a collection of items from LADA’s study room which offer some wider context on Leigh Bowery’s work and the influence it continues to hold. If you would like to view this collection of books and video documentation, you can book a slot to visit LADA’s Study Room in Bethnal Green.

MonitorPop 2007, Take a Bowery: The Art and (Larger Than) Life of Leigh Bowery 2003, Leigh Bowery Looks: Photographs by Fergus Greer 1988-1994 2005

Take a Bowery: The art and (larger than) Life of Leigh Bowery

Publication
Exhibition catalogue from Take a Bowery: The art and (larger than) Life of Leigh Bowery, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia, 2003 

Live Culture / Leigh Bowery at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery

Digital File
Film made by Cerith Wyn Evans
Documentation from Bowery’s 1988 performance at the Anthony d’Offay Gallery

The Legend of Leigh Bowery

DVD
Documentary film about Leigh Bowery, directed by Charles Atlas, 2002

Leigh Bowery – The Life and Times of an Icon

Publication
Author: Sue Tilley
A biography and tribute to a colourful unique and larger than life character, written in 1997 by his close friend Sue Tilley

Leigh!

Publication
Artist/Author: Donald Urquhart
A zine created to accompany a 2012 exhibition of Leigh Bowery’s costumes in Vienna called Xtravaganza: Staging Leigh Bowery, by Donald Urquhart a close fried of Leigh Bowery

Club Kids: From Speakeasies to Boombox and Beyond

Publication
Editor: Raven Smith
A visual study and critical analysis of the social trends relating to ‘club culture’ published in 2008

Looks

Publication
Artist/Author: Leigh Bowery
Editor: Fergus Greer
The a book documenting the looks created by Bowery from 1988 to 1994

Queer

Publication
Editor: David J. Getsy
Part of Whitechapel Gallery’s Documents of Contemporary Art series, a collection of anthologies which collect writing on major themes and ideas in contemporary art. This is the first anthology to bring together artist’s writings and conversations about queer practice

Monitorpop, No. 1

DVD
Artist/Author: Various (see content)
A compilation with exclusive interviews (Mark Stewart, Hermann Nitsch, Throbbing Gristle, Matthew Herbert etc.), short films, slide shows and music clips.

Carnivalesque

Publication
Artist/Author: Timothy Hyman, Roger Malbert
Exhibition catalogue from Carnivalesque,  a 2000 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London that celebrated the imagery of Carnival in Western art

The Homosexual

Type: Digital File
Artist/Author: Adrian Howells
Documentation of 1993 performance of Adrian Howells and Leigh Bowery

Banner image credit:

Cerith Wyn Evans, Leigh_Bowery at the Anthony Doffay Gallery, 1988

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