Discover how critics have been reacting to the gallery’s latest exhibition exploring the work of the Australian performance artist.
The Guardian: *** “He made of himself many things at once. This is inspiring and affirming and frightening and awful and somehow wonderful and dreadful to witness. You can’t take your eyes off him.”
Wallpaper.com: “There is a horror-glamour and aggressive rejection of norms in the work of Bowery and his friends that is palpably exciting.”
The Telegraph: *** “The avant-garde fashion designer and performance artist was an irrepressible force – yet this show feels often feels repetitive and thin.”
The Independent: **** “This sometimes amazing show at Tate Modern makes a big claim for the nightlife entrepreneur and performance artist, who was one of the most visible figures of the 1980s.”
Frieze Magazine: “. Nothing can make up for the loss of such a unique talent, but perhaps this timely retrospective can inspire people – amidst yet another reactionary right-wing surge – to live life freely, creatively, defiantly.”
The Observer: **** “The whole show is evocative not just of another era in music, dance and performance art, but also the media. There are vividly inventive magazine shoots here for i-D, Blitz and the Face – currently having its own celebratory exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery – as well as for the press.”
The Standard: **** “Visitors will be hard passed not to leave without feeling a burning desire to be more individual and daring, too — as important a message today than any.”
Leigh Bowery! is on display at Tate Modern until the 31st August.