This year it will be 30 years since the death of performance artist, Leigh Bowery. Yet his influence on popular culture remains. From Alexander McQueen, RuPaul and Lady Gaga – he has inspired many of popular culture’s most recognised and feted.
On Tuesday, December 31 on BBC Radio 4, Nick Grimshaw plunges into the colourful, sensuous, and downright outrageous world of Leigh Bowery, who died of an AIDS related illness on New Year’s Eve in 1994. From bottomless trousers to live “births” on stage, Leigh was a giant of a man who knew how to shock and enjoyed doing it. He was a fixture of the ’80s club scene and his flamboyant and body-contorting costumes and his ability to shock continues to resonate.
Leigh knew no boundaries – his vision was limitless. The costumes he designed and the acts he performed for his trips to cult nightclub, Taboo, are the stuff of legend, so much so that it was turned into a stage musical. He was also immortalised many times by the artist Lucian Freud who captured Leigh’s bulk and beauty in his distinctive and raw paintings.
Grimshaw speaks to those who knew and collaborated with him, including Boy George, dancer and choreographer Michael Clark, writer and fashion critic Charlie Porter and Leigh’s best friend and biographer Sue Tilley.
Boy George speaks about his first encounter with Leigh Bowery and how his work influenced him; Sue Tilley describes some of his most outrageous performances; Michael Clark talks about the controversial costume that spelt the end of his creative partnership with Leigh; and Charlie Porter argues that Bowery’s work should have been taken more seriously at the time and explains how Leigh wanted to break the stigma of AIDS.
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