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Leigh Bowery: Performative Costuming and Live Art is a critical exploration of the creative practice, social-historical context and cultural impact of the late London-based artist Leigh Bowery. The diversity of Bowery’s work and his marginality as an artist who emerged during the 1980s from a subcultural milieu complicated and thwarted his cultural value, hindering his incorporation into art institutions and performance art narratives for some time. Drawing on a variety of disciplines and challenging research contexts, Sofia Vranou seeks to historicize Bowery’s multifaceted body of work and critically situate it within the expanded fields of visual culture and performance studies.
Through close analysis of Bowery’s key looks and non-theatrical performances, the book investigates the implications of his work in dominant histories of performance art and urgent discourses surrounding normativity, representations of illness, and identity politics. Thought-provoking and engaging, it focuses on Bowery’s costuming as a performative strategy that effectively blurs the boundaries between art and life, delves into his aesthetics of freakishness and narcissistic desire, reflects on his involvement with BDSM practices and the performance of extremity and unpacks the post-transsexual ethos behind his hybrid embodiments and trans-queer visual language.
Foreword by Boy George.
'Focusing on Bowery’s work as performance art, Leigh Bowery: Performative Costuming and Live Art situates his distinctive body of work within a well orchestrated effort to contextualize his contributions as an art practice. As an academic resource, the book offers researchers detailed insights into a cultural background that either directly influenced Bowery or shaped the art scenes of his era.
Through its rigorous case studies and art-centred analysis, the book offers a substantial academic resource for artists, art historians and those engaged with queer performance culture, covering pertinent examples of not only Bowery, but also figures like Ron Athey, Bob Flanagan and others who elevated corporeal, queer and performative art to new, progressive and influential heights. It also serves as a compelling counterpoint to the aesthetically focused Bowery renaissance, providing a deeper insight into his motivations and achievements.'
— Ehud Joseph, Studies in Costume & Performance
'This is an essential read for anyone interested in the critical relationship between culture, art and material-corporeal expressive practices, where costume and performance serve as instrumental interventions in pressing social matters. Through Leigh Bowery’s provocative practice, this detailed and enlightening study navigates rich and relevant discourses implicated by his performance art. Emerging against the background of the HIV/AIDS crisis, it also articulates a diverse and anti-disciplinary legacy of acceptance and difference.'
— Donatella Barbieri, Reader in Critical Costume Practices and Cultures, London College of Fashion
'Without dimming a trailblazing light, the book is bound to be a key source for studying the complexity and enduring influence of Leigh Bowery’s practice across live art, visual culture and queer studies.'
— Stephen Farrier, Professor of Theatre and Performance, Rose Bruford College
Sofia Vranou holds a Ph.D. from Queen Mary University of London. She has a background in art history and visual cultures and a strong interest in live art, queer aesthetics, performative costuming, subcultural histories and marginal identities.
Foreword – Boy George
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Larger Than Life
Chapter 1 Performative Costuming: Merging Fashion, Art, and Life
Chapter 2 The Subcultural Freak: Narcissism and the Disruption of Normativity
Chapter 3 Fabulously Painful: BDSM and the Performance of Extremity
Chapter 4 Beyond Drag: Trans-Queer Embodiments and Repronormativity
Epilogue: Bowery Futures
Bibliography
Index