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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Rubber mask, gloves and chains by ROB OF AMSTERDAM; dress by WOLFORD; Jewellery CHANEL and MIMCO
Dress Julian by J. SMITH; necklace by HOUSE OF FLORA; swimming cap by STEPHEN JONES; Aviators by RAY-BAN
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The problem with, or indeed point of, this kind of art, or any art for that matter, in any medium, is that once the art has been viewed, read, heard, experienced by anyone other than the artist, it belongs to that person almost more than it does to the artist.That’s surely the reason we make art. That’s the gift. ‘That’s the thing about art. I don’t pretend to know a lot about it and I feel uncomfortable talking about it ‘cause I don’t have a lot of art language or art education but no matter what you say about your art, you have no control over what people are thinking about it, no control over what they think you think about it and even if you tell them directly what you think about it they’re analysing why you think that and where that’s coming from, so it’s all about the other person.You’re never gonna be able to really say what it is.That’s the best part.’ So what’s the point of art if you can’t control or own it? Well, that is the point, and that’s something Leigh Bowery and Beth Ditto both seem to understand and have in common.They don’t actually care what you think. If it sparks a debate about anything – politics, body image, etc. – that’s good, but that’s not the aim. That’s your interpretation and it belongs to you.We needn’t point out the irony of the fact that this is what we are doing in writing this and what you are doing in reading it. But we will anyway. At this point, Beth leans forward into the microphone. ‘I just pooted. Let the record show that I pooted.’We’re letting the record show. And ‘poof’ (or rather ‘poot’), our theories and musings on art (yar) vanish. Let’s bring it back.We couldn’t chat to Beth Ditto without talking about feminism and sexuality. ‘I hate women.’ Laughs. Ok, let’s talk about misogyny. ‘I feel about feminism how people feel about religion. Is this a lice comb? It is, look! It’s the one thing I can always rely on (feminism, not a lice comb) and when I lose faith in the world I can always see it through the scope of feminism and I feel a lot better. Feminism is my Jesus and Nina Simone is my God.’
In the last few months of his life, dying of AIDS, Bowery, a gay man who’d had a few flings with women, married his best friend, Nicola Bateman. ‘That’s another thing (we have in common). Like with Jerry, (Beth’s best friend) there’s such a strong love.We’re both gay but sometimes when I see the person I wanna spend the rest of my life with, it’s him. That’s so beautiful; to marry your best friend because you love them so much.’ So does sexuality influence the art of Beth Ditto and the art of Leigh Bowery? ‘Sexuality is a thing, just like isolation is a thing, especially because it is so isolating and especially when you’re young. And if you grew up in any kind of religious circumstance or financial circumstance, all those things contribute to isolation and depression but all those things contribute to creativity…because what you wanted, you had to work so much harder to get.’ This raises an interesting nature/nurture debate because it could be seen as a contradiction to Beth’s previous statements that Bowery was ‘just like that’.Was he just like that or did his early lifestyle, sexuality etc contribute to his art and does it even matter? ‘Sexuality is an important factor because if you need to hide, you need an outlet.’ Does she think Bowery was hiding behind his art? ‘No. I think those were literally his insides that you were seeing.’ Perhaps the reason these two performance artists seem such a great combination is because the same might be said of Beth. So, is the music of Beth and the art of Bowery after all a purging, a breaking of the ties that bound.That bind. Is the ‘exhibitionism’ (that’s our word; Beth would call herself ‘a ham’) simply a manifestation of liberation and can that be separated from the artist’s consciousness? As we watched Beth embody Bowery on set, we wondered what they would talk about if they were to meet. ‘Probably doodoo. We’d probably make doodoo jokes. I talk about doodoo a lot.’ Needless to say, Beth’s sense of humour is unabashed and childish but charming in its infancy and, as such, totally inoffensive. Bowery’s art and performance has been Coat and dress, ANGLOMANIA by VIVIENNE WESTWOOD; trainers by NIKE; shoes by MINNA PARIKKA; stockings by AGENT PROVOCATEUR; necklace by MIMCO
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‘Feminism is my religion and Nina Simone is my God.’
Dresses by BASSO & BROOK; crash helmet by LAZER RIDER; scarves by HERMES. 125 MAGAZINE
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Dresses by ANTONI & ALISON; rope by ARTHUR BEALE; tights by BEBAROQUE; boots by DOCTOR MARTENS; hat and bracelets by HOUSE OF FLORA
described as both darkly humorous and ironic, which is something else Beth relates to. ‘Well, he was a masochist, which helped him out’ she says, as Andrew pulls a pair of tights over her head and ties them at the back. You can pull it as tight as you want. We can’t do a Leigh Bowery shoot without a little pain.’ At this point, her mouth is wide open and crushed against the fabric as though she were pressing it against a window. She still manages to talk though. ‘You know, even if he wasn’t funny, I don’t know if he had a sense of humour or not, I don’t wanna know. I’m glad I never got to meet him in a way. ‘Cause in my mind he’s the funniest person in the world and we would have a lot to talk about.’ Beth’s favourite outfit of the day is a half-styled pair of flesh coloured tights with primary coloured spots on one leg, pulled up over her white and red knickers, blue DMs and a strapless, flesh-coloured bra. She loves being photographed, and before we’re even on set she’s getting people to take pictures of her on their iPhones with her hair and make-up team in silly poses and outfits. ‘I always liked to look like a clown.’ So, no childhood clown phobias here? ‘No. I was afraid of real things like ghosts and monsters.’ In front of the camera she’s great, really natural and free. She knows exactly how to work her body and the shots are in the can (‘We’re doing a shoot in the can!?’) in record time. ‘I love photo shoots. My favourite day was Sunday because I liked to go to church and dress up. Sunday clothes.’ And here is where Beth and Bowery meet once more, on
the plane of the visual artist. ‘I feel more attached to visual parts of myself than I do to musical parts. It’s not so much being on stage. The funnest part is the visual of it all.’ So, if Beth’s music was a work of art, what would it be? ‘Probably a fried egg.That’s just the first thing that came to my head. Ok, do I answer and think about that or do I just say the first thing that comes into my head?’ And if she thought about it? A four second pause. ‘Still a fried egg. Now I’ve really thought about it, definitely a fried egg. Nope, definitely a fried egg. Fried eggs are pretty. I saw it over-medium. I saw it in my kitchen. In the skillet. A cast-iron skillet.’ As for Bowery, Beth’s perceptions of him have undermined all the artistic analysis and psychoanalysis that we’d been gearing up for; intellectual comparisons of Lucien Freud (who painted Bowery and women of flesh), the nature of vulnerability in art, representations of the feminine through the ages, yada yada yada. ‘He was one of a kind. But for such a good reason.’ And what was the reason Beth? We didn’t get that far; she was talking about doodoo again. ‘I hate the p word. Too many p’s and too many oo’s. I much prefer shit or doodoo.’ So, it seems the reason was that there was no reason.That’s just the way it was. Vanessa Austin Locke
Hat by HOUSE OF FLORA; tights by AGENT PROVOCATEUR
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Coat, top and shorts by VIVIENNE WESTWOOD; gloves by MINNA PARIKKA; hat by STEPHEN JONES; shoes byTERRY DE HAVILLAND; tights byWOLFORD 125 MAGAZINE
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Dress by GARY HARVEY; collar by DAVID KOMA; tights by BEBAROQUE; Bag shoes by MULBERRY 53