There’s a huge Leigh Bowery exhibition coming to Tate Modern this spring.
London’s most visited art museum will host the retrospective — titled Leigh Bowery! (with all important exclamation mark!) — from February 2025. It'll show how the boundary-pushing artist, performer, model, designer, TV personality, club promoter and musician left a sensational legacy from his short life.
Born in Australia but based in London for much of his adult life, Bowery’s career would see him take on many different roles, all the while refusing to be limited by convention.
The exhibition — and the massive accompanying Bowery book — will span his emergence in the British capital’s club scene in the 1980s through to his outrageous performances in galleries, theatres and even in the street. It will show how he celebrated the body as a shape-shifting tool with the power to challenge norms of aesthetics, sexuality and gender.
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What's on display in the Leigh Bowery exhibition?
The fact that the exhibition is being organised in close collaboration with the director and owner of Bowery’s estate — and that it’s billed as “eclectic and immersive” — means we should really expect a show like no other seen at Tate before.
Tate Modern will bring together Bowery’s outlandish and dazzling costumes for this show, showing them alongside painting, photography and videos.
Bowery quickly learned after his arrival in London that there was social currency in setting himself apart from the crowd through his bold and distinctive style. Visitors will get up close to the intricate costumes he hand-crafted with collaborator Nicola Rainbird — who later became his wife — and corsetier Mr Pearl. Photographs by Fergus Greer will illustrate how Bowery brought these to life in animated ways.
Visitors will also be able to step into Bowery's world of the 1980s — including his own club night Taboo which he launched in 1985 and which cemented his international reputation — via an exciting music and video installation by filmmaker and DJ Jeffrey Hinton which has been made especially for the exhibition.
A highlight will be filmmaker Dick Jewell’s What’s Your Reaction to the Show? from 1998 which will reveal the honest opinions of the cast of friends, colleagues and passersby who witnessed Bowery's hugely ambitious and groundbreaking 'mirror' performance. In the performance, Bowery dressed up and posed in front of a two-way mirror for five days allowing viewers to watch him while he was oblivious to their gaze.
But for many art lovers, it will be Bowery’s relationship with artist Lucien Freud that will be the biggest draw. Their connection began when Freud invited Bowery to be his model, with Bowery's distinctive and larger-than-life presence providing Freud with a fascinating subject that led to a series of striking and memorable portraits of Bowery that continue to be admired to this day. Tate have confirmed that several of Freud’s personal portraits of Bowery will be displayed in the exhibition, showing how the renowned artist presented a fresh view of this flamboyant performer.
Prompted by the intimacy of posing for Freud, Bowery increasingly began using his body as raw material. So there will also be portraits by photographers including Nick Knight and films by Charles Atlas on display, highlighting how Bowery was able to use his body as a form of contemporary surrealism.
Finally, visitors can also expect to see just how expansive Bowery’s influence has been since his death, with inspiration seen in the work of huge names like Alexander McQueen and Lady Gaga.
Leigh Bowery! exhibition tickets
Adult tickets to see this Bowery retrospective are £18. Students can see it for £17, and Tate Members get in free. Tickets are already available to pre-book now if you want to secure your spot.
And if you're a big Bowery fan, you'll be delighted to know that being published alongside the exhibition is a brand new and massively comprehensive monograph on his life and career. It features over two hundred images by and of the artist, including those iconic paintings by Lucien Freud. And even more excitingly, Bowery's entire costume archive has been newly-photographed and is published in the book for the very first time. Published in February in both hardback and paperback, it is available for pre-order now.
2025 will be eclectic at Tate Modern — perhaps matching Bowery's vibe! They’ll also be exhibitions ranging from the large-scale colourful installations of Korean-born, London-based artist Do Ho Suh, a group exhibition on Nigerian Modernism, and a unique focus on Picasso’s The Three Dancers painting.
Leigh Bowery! opens at Tate Modern in London on 27 February, and runs until 02 Sep 2025.
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