B E T H D O ES B OWERY A tribute to the art of the late performance artist, icon and legend Leigh Bowery modelled by Beth Ditto. Model ~ MARY BETH DITTO Photographer ~ PAUL FARRELL Creative Direction ~ GARY HARVEY Styling ~ GARY HARVEY & GLEN M cEVOY Make-up ~ ANDREW GALLIMORE at CLM using M.A.C. cosmetics Hair ~ LYND E LL M A N S FIELD at CLM using Bumble and bumble Photographer’s assistants ~ BILLY Mc CARTNEY and JAMES KEMENOE Stylist’s assistant ~ MICHELLE HARVEY Make-up assistant HELENA LYONS Hair assistant ~ ROXIE ATTARD Retouch ~ VIM at sohoretouch Location ~ HOLBORN STUDIOS Thanks to Danny Murphy and Tara at Hardland management
CONVERSATIONS ON LEIGH BOWERY, ART AND DOODOO
The late Leigh Bowery, Australian performance artist, infamous muse, musician and designer is reincarnated, recreated and captured, for your pleasure, in the fun-making whirligig that is Beth Ditto. As the photographers were setting up for the shoot, testing the velocity of silk scarves in a wind machine, a great ‘whoop’ emanated from the entrance of the studio. Beth Ditto, dressed in black, face free of make-up, was delighting at the scarves as they flew up in the air. Greeting everyone with a big hello and a firm, friendly handshake, she invited us into her dressing room, told us to sit down, have a cookie and make ourselves comfy as she promptly stripped down to her smalls. It was a very full house as we perched on various surfaces, and banter began immediately with anyone who walked into the room. Fun, games and laughter ensued, making for an enjoyable if slightly fractured interview, with no whining, bitching or demanding and without a diva in sight. This attitude is wonderfully refreshing in an industry littered with egos the size of Wales. We all have egos of course, but often in the arts they’re inflated by fear of perception, the desire to project a message, be liked, be something or someone, and we expected Beth’s to come from somewhere like that. Unusually, we discovered, that’s not the case at all. So, Beth and Bowery. Where do these two meet and relate? What’s the perception? What’s the message and meaning here and why is Beth a good reflection of Bowery? First off we wanted to know what she thought of Bowery. ‘Well, he’s fat. I thought that was really cool. It’s a really dreamy photo shoot ‘cause it’s really ridiculous.’Yes, but what of this Bowery chap? Seasoned performer playing the fame game or was there more to him than meets the bulging, painted eye? ‘I really think that’s just who he was.You know how Lady Gaga is always like “I dress like this all the time”? No you don’t! But I can really see Leigh Bowery walking round with a safety pin through his testicles just because it was that day.’ This seems to be where Beth is coming from too. ‘I think one of the things I like about him is that he’s just a natural, queer freak.’
And what makes a natural, queer freak? Well, another thing Bowery and Beth have in common is that they both came from small towns. Some might go so far as to call them backward towns; Bowery described his home, a suburb of Melbourne called Sunshine, as a ‘cultural wasteland’. ‘God, I can relate to that. MTV was banned in my town’ Beth exclaims as Andrew Gallimore (her adored make-up artist) tries to apply a huge red mouth through her bubbling chatter. ‘Growing up in Arkansas was definitely a cultural wasteland.You know, we made everything. People see what a scene is like and so they look like each other. We didn’t look like anybody. It was really avant-garde in a way.’ And what kind of creativity does that kind of ‘wasteland’ create? ‘When you’re from a place like that, you have to try so much harder for it. You have to make it up for yourself. If you’re not saturated by other’s art all the time you become more resourceful.You look at someone in a magazine and you make up what they’re like and you mimic that and then you get there and you realise you are way cooler than they were. And what you’re doing has never been done before ‘cause they never had to look through the eyes that you had to look through, without any kind of filter.’ Bowery has been described as an extremist when it comes to performance and so, at times, has Beth. Bowery’s band – Minty – was labelled by The Sun as ‘The sickest band in the world’. ‘Well, they’ve obviously never seen GG Allin! Everyone who knew about the underground and stuff knew they weren’t the sickest band in the world.’ So, if you’re from a small town, you have to want it so much more. Does that then separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak or is it more a case of those who want it and those who are it and can’t be anything else? Was Bowery the art himself? ‘I really just think he was that way. Like, whatever vision it was that was in his brain he’d do whatever it took to do it. If he had to chop off his own hands he probably would have done it.’ Pause. ‘If he could have lived.’ Another pause. ‘But then he couldn’t put on his underpants. Then he would have had to use someone else’s hands and the vision is lost!’ Laughter. So yes, perhaps he was the art.Walking, breathing art, without a consciousness of art with a capital A.
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Dress, ANGLOMANIA by VIVIENNE WESTWOOD 41