
A portrait of the artists as a pair of young wastrels - prismatic
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/6959/full
======
DonHopkins
Lucian Freud painted the verbally indescribable Leigh Bowery!

[http://www.artcritical.com/2014/04/30/phoebe-hoban-on-
lucian...](http://www.artcritical.com/2014/04/30/phoebe-hoban-on-lucian-
freud/)

In the first portrait, Leigh Bowery (Seated) 1990, his figure overwhelms a red
armchair. Indeed, Freud kept enlarging the canvas with new strips in order to
contain him. And yet, as large as he was, Bowery had an almost dancerly grace.
Even in a seemingly straightforward pose like that of Naked Man, Back View
(1991–92), where only the model’s back is shown as he sits on a low ottoman,
Freud managed to capture a sense of both the baroque and the Buddha-like
embedded in Bowery’s presence.

[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/01/the-
nig...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/01/the-night-i-put-
leigh-bowery-on-the-catwalk-iain-r-webb)

Subject: Leigh Bowery (1961- 94), a man of gargantuan scale physically and
culturally, a transvestite performance artist, fetishist designer, leader of
the band Minty and theatrical giver of birth.

Distinguishing features: Bowery is a character out of Renaissance art -
perhaps Silenus, the companion of Dionysus. His flesh is a magnificent ruin,
at once damaged and riotously alive. Who knew skin was so particoloured? To
count the hues of even one of his feet is impossible: purple, grey, yellow,
brown, the paint creamy, calloused, bulging. In a velvet chair tilted down
towards us on the raked stage of the wooden studio floor, his mass looms up
and dwarfs us. Walk close your eyes are probably the height of his penis.
Bowery's violet-domed, wrinkly tube hangs between thighs marked with sinister
spots or cuts his knees are massive. Bowery is a painted monument who quietly
contemplates his existence inside this flesh.

Leigh Bowery - Wigstock 1994, unexpectedly giving birth on stage to the first
baby born at Wigstock:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3yVBhVrltU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3yVBhVrltU)

Leigh Bowrey (Take Me To The Club by Mannequin):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsLLrjnew84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsLLrjnew84)

~~~
garethsprice
He did etchings of Bowery too... some of my favorite works of art. Leigh
Bowery was rarely seen publicly out of his fantastical outfits, so the
etchings of him as a large naked man are especially striking and show his
humanity.

If you like Leigh Bowery, one of his recent spiritual descendants is Daniel
Lismore.

~~~
DonHopkins
Wow, thank you for that tip about Daniel Lismore!

I also really love Klaus Nomi's work too, of course.

While I was exploring Leigh Bowery's work on youtube, I ran across VJ ladypat,
who made a mesmerizing video to Leigh Bowery's charming lullaby "Useless Man"
(N-fucking-SFW!!!):

A RMX BY ADAM SKY OF THE SEMINAL MINTY / LEIGH BOWERY TRACK 'USELESS MAN'.
VIDEO BY LADYPAT. 2005: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfC5OtT-
Dzc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfC5OtT-Dzc)

Ladypat also did some other beautiful videos with feedback and cellular
automata effects that I like, for a beloved eccentric local celebrity in
Brighton named Boogaloo Stu, who's quite a unique character himself:

Boogaloo Stu "Bazooka": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBDZ-
KZsAzo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBDZ-KZsAzo)

Boogaloo Stu "Magic Soul":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmEs1PTPNVk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmEs1PTPNVk)

Puppet Paramour and Sock Puppet Side Show - Boogaloo Stu, Dip Your Toe -
Brighton Fringe 2012: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by-
GH0J4ZV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by-GH0J4ZV8)

------
gumby
Another HN find: accidentally clicking to be disappointed by an article on a
subject I'm not particularly interested in which then sucked me in and
delighted me.

I'm struck by the 1974 photo of these two reprobates: by today's standards
they appear quite formally dressed and put together.

(My wife was a huge fan of both Bacon and Freud and would have loved this
article. It's why I read it, out of a sense of nostalgia, but it turned out to
be great on its own merits)

~~~
toyg
_> these two reprobates: by today's standards they appear quite formally
dressed_

Bacon was an actual aristocrat and Freud the descendant of central-European
"Jewish royalty"; of course they knew how to dress.

~~~
gumby
In that photo they are wearing distinctively downmarket clothes: middle class
overcoats and the like, yet still more formal than today. I was simply
commenting on how sartorial standards have changed.

In the 60s and 70s I dressed up to get on a plane. Yes, as a little boy too
young to wear long pants I still wore a dress jacket.

Watching "The Magic Christian" in particular is pretty interesting in this
regard: at the end there is an...amazing... scene contrasting dressed up
middle class businessmen with the hippies. By today's standards those radical
hippy dress is pretty staid.

~~~
coldtea
> _In that photo they are wearing distinctively downmarket clothes: middle
> class overcoats and the like_

Middle class? Compared to what? Royal cloaks and tunics? They look like
normally fine overcoats, the kind that can cost anything from $200 to several
thousand dollars depending on the marker.

The distinctively British obsession with class and royalty never ceases to
amaze me (especially since it's rarely actual upper class people that take joy
in bringing others down as "middle class" \-- not to mention that in Britain
middle class is leveled at people making much more money than most commenting
sneeringly at the "middle class" make, as if those sneering identify with
royalty themselves).

~~~
DonHopkins
Whatever keeps you up at night. I'm more worried about American's obsession
with fascism, white supremacy, and tax cuts for the rich at the expense of
health care for the poor, than Britain's obsession with class and royalty. At
least the Brits have decent health care, and their leaders aren't being
blackmailed and puppeted by Vladimir Putin.

>the kind that can cost anything from $200 to several thousand dollars
depending on the marker.

The British typically pay for their clothing in pounds.

A freakishly dressed friend of mine (and gumby's) bought her best vintage
outfits at a used clothing store in the Boston Garment District called "Dollar
a Pound" during the 80's. Then she moved to London, so I suggested she search
for a clothing store called "Pound a Kilogram".

[https://garmentdistrict.com/departments/?target=by-the-
pound](https://garmentdistrict.com/departments/?target=by-the-pound)

It all started in the 80’s.

By The Pound’s road to becoming a Boston institution began in 1981 when one
Saturday morning a few bales were opened on the floor of an old Cambridge soap
factory. Back then it was called Dollar-A-Pound, and there were only a few
hours a week you could shop through the thousands of pounds of clothing. We
opened at 7:45 because people just kept coming in earlier & earlier and closed
at 2:00 so that we could go out to the racetrack. Many things have changed
since those days. By the Pound has been given many coats of paint & is now
open 7 days a week instead of one.

~~~
mmjaa
> At least the Brits have decent health care, and their leaders aren't being
> blackmailed and puppeted by Vladimir Putin.

Umm .. yeah. The going theory for why the UK fails, consistently, to prosecute
child sex offenders in the halls of its Parliament, is because its a "national
security issue" due to the facts of 'what Russia knows'. So I wouldn't be so
sure to think the UK isn't under Russian thumb...

------
zbyszek
The photographer, Harry Diamond, (himself the subject of a Freud painting --
[http://pictify.saatchigallery.com/462766/interior-in-
padding...](http://pictify.saatchigallery.com/462766/interior-in-
paddington-1981-freud)) was still a Soho habitué many years later when I had
the pleasure of meeting him. I recommend his work, too.

------
garethsprice
Not sure what this has to do with tech but it was a great article on two of my
favorite artists. Happy to find it here.

