|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Filmmaker Charles Atlas’s extraordinary docu-portrait of Australian-born London artist Leigh Bowery depicts a man whose outrageous performance persona is the polar opposite of his image as Lucian Freud’s most famous model and muse. Bowery’s art-modeling career was cut short by his death in 1994; in the 1980s, however, he enlivened and redefined the London fashion scene. Drag queen, performance artist, costume designer, nightclub impresario: he was a compulsively expressive craftsman. His designs (for choreographer Michael Clark, or for his avant-garde band, Minty) usually reflected his current personal style: punk, New Romantic, sado-masochistic. His over-the-top ensembles and controversial performances (giving birth to a full-grown woman who then drank his urine got him banned in Westminster) assured him a permanent (and often reviled) presence on the talk-show circuit. For this documentary, Atlas has interviewed only his closest loved ones and collaborators. Bowery’s extremism and artifice are qualities contemporary audiences may find refreshing amid the current obsession with authenticity and "reality." This is art that’s perverse, horrible, nightmarish, and unstoppably original. (82 minutes)
BY PEG ALOI
|
