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‘A living, breathing work of art’: Leigh Bowery by those who knew him best

The performance artist shocked 1980s London with his surreal outfits, outlandish lifestyle and collaborations with Lucian Freud, dancer Michael Clark and others. As a major exhibition opens at Tate Modern, family and friends talk about Bowery’s larger-than-life legacy

Courtesy The Michael Hoppen Gallery.In the 80s street style bible i-D, journalist Alix Sharkey wrote of its curious allure: “These days Thursday nights in the West End usually means Taboo – London’s sleaziest, campest, bitchiest club of the moment which is stuffed with designers, stylists, models, students, dregs and the hopefully hip, lurching through the lasers and snarfing up amyl.” The defining atmosphere, he concluded, was characterised by “a narcissistic air of self-absorption”. The first sitting at Freud’s studio radically changed Bowery’s life, lending him credibility in the art world In her book, Tilley writes: “A lot of the time, Leigh was really horrible to Nicola,” describing how, following a heated row, he would sometimes “pick her up and lock her on the balcony of his flat for a couple of hours”. Photograph: Bridgeman ImagesAt Tate Modern, Bowery will be remembered for many things, including the groundbreaking pop-cultural event when he “danced” with Clark’s ensemble at Sadler’s Wells to live music by the Fall, and the moment he entered the art world through his installation at the Anthony d’Offay gallery in 1988, posing daily in a different costume on a chaise longue behind a one-way mirror.

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