Reflections on ... Leigh Bowery! at Tate Modern

 

/ Portrait of Leigh Bowery by Nick Knight, 1992 /

“In his brief life Bowery was described as many things. Among them: fashion designer, club monster, human sculpture, nude model, vaudeville drunkard, anarchic auteur, pop surrealist, clown without a circus, piece of moving furniture, modern art on legs. However, he declared if you label me, you negate me and always refused classification, commodification and conformity. Bowery was fascinated by the human form and interested in the tension between contradictions. He used makeup as a form of painting, clothing and flesh as sculpture and every environment as ready-made stage for his artistry. Bridging the gap between art and life, he took on different roles and then discarded them, presenting an understanding of identity that was never stable but always memorable. Bowery embraced difference, often using embarrassment as a tool both to release his own inhibitions and those of people around him. He wanted to shock with his looks and performances. At a time of increasing conservative values in Britain, Bowery refashioned ideas around identity, morality and culture. At times, this caused offence ...” 

This is the introductory text at the exhibit Leigh Bowery! at Tate Modern. (Boy, is that exclamation point warranted!), which probes the life and times of debauched post-punk drag monster, performance artist, nightclub promoter, fashion designer, artist’s model, muse, musician, Australia’s twisted gift to the world and all-round visionary Leigh Bowery (1961 - 1994). I visited it on Sunday, and it scrambled my brains in the best possible way. I’m still processing it! The images Bowery created remain freaky, nightmarish and beautiful, un-mellowed by the passage of time. (Even “off-duty”, Bowery sought to freak out the squares, wanting to resemble “the weirdo on the street that you tell your mum about”). I was particularly struck by his collaborations with bad boy of dance Michael Clark and ferocious post-punk band The Fall and a video clip by Charles Atlas of Bowery miming to an old Aretha Franklin song, a pair of novelty red lips from a joke shop affixed to his face with safety pins. The exhibit is on until 31 August 2025. Here are my pics!

Joey Arias at Brasserie Zédel 12 February 2017

Any time Joey Arias – veteran performance art / cabaret legend, toast of Mondo New York and all-round fabulous creature – breezes into London, attendance is freaking obligatory! So, a big gang of us assembled to see his gig last night (Arias is doing a residency at Brasserie Zédel inSoho 11-14 February 2017).

Arias’ speciality is his evocation of doomed jazz diva Billie Holiday in all her earthy, ravaged foul-mouthed hedonistic glory. This isn’t a conventional “tribute act”, though – Arias is freakier, raunchier and far more original than that. And the Art Deco opulence of Brasserie Zédel provided the perfect backdrop, creating a sense of mid-century café society.

Arias himself was a compelling spectacle in fetish-y black Frederick's of Hollywood-style lingerie and full Vampira make-up. His voice is a soulful smoky, scratchy rasp alternately lewd and awash with heartbreak (my friend Louise admitted afterwards she cried several times during Arias’ set). As well as samplings from the Billie Holiday songbook ("You’ve Changed", "God Bless the Child"), Arias also answered the musical question: what would unlikely other songs by the likes of Cream or Bob Dylan sound like given the Holiday torch song treatment (with added Yma Sumac-like bird noises and punctuated by deep stripper squats)? The answer – hilarious, dramatic and exquisite!

Between songs, Arias gave a swear-y but elegant masterclass in audience participation, shuttling between seduction and aggression just because it amused him. Mingling through the crowd, flirting outrageously, he stopped and asked a woman’s name. “Ann-Marie? That’s a whore’s name.” He implored two (platonic) female friends at another table to kiss on the lips. When they hesitated, Arias snapped, “I’m not saying eat her pussy! Just kiss her on the lips! It’s love!” More pointedly, he turned his full laser beams on a rude heterosexual couple who arrived late then proceed to check their mobile phones and talk amongst themselves. “Sarah! Look at me!” Joey hissed. “Focus!” (Who were those two and what were they doing there?)

For the night’s emotional high-point, Arias demanded all the venue’s lights be extinguished (even the neon sign behind the bar) so that he was illuminated by just a single blue spotlight. Then he crooned an eerie, spine-tingling “I Cover the Waterfront”, transforming the jazz standard into an anguished prostitute’s lament. Devastating!

/ Afterwards we ambushed Arias in the lobby for an impromptu red-hot camera session! L-R: (back row) Chris and Pal. Front: Louise, Joey Arias, Nell and me /

/ Above: (Back) Chris, Joey, Nell and Pal. (Front) Louise and Alex /

Further reading:

See the full set of photos from Joey Arias at Brasserie Zédel here

See my photos of Joey Arias performing at London's Institute of Contemporary Art in 2014 here

Read my account of seeing Arias perform in 2013 here

The intense off-and-on friendship between wild women Billie Holiday and Tallulah Bankhead

Canadian Freak Diva Peaches at Oval Space on 8 November 2016

Freaky Canadian raunch queen Peaches’ outrageous gig last year at The Electric Ballroom in London was one of my cultural highlights of 2015. So when the kinky ambisexual electro-punk diva returned to London (this time at the intimate Oval Space in East London) for a sold-out two-night engagement in November 2016, my ass was there! My boyfriend Pal and I went on the first night of her residency so we could be there for Peaches’ big opening (insert your own joke). 

How amazing to see Peaches in such a small venue: Pal, our friends and I were right up front, with Peaches and her two boy-girl backing dancers crotch-thrusting and gyrating right in our faces! It was a night of joyous, life-affirming sleaze, with Peaches performing her stark, grinding electronica (mostly drawn from her majestic 2015 comeback album Rub) in various stages of semi-nudity (loads of boobage and buttage was on display, both male and female. Peaches has always been an equal opportunities perv). Each song was a piece of wild performance art complete with multiple costume changes. Peaches was in fierce, belting voice throughout (in perfect tune even when crowd-surfing or cavorting in a giant inflatable penis suspended over the audience). At times, clad in her revealing leotard, the kinetic and impressively fit Peaches suggested a toilet-mouthed aerobics instructor gone berserk. (In September 2016 we’d all been to see swampy skank-goddess Christeene’s gutter revue at The Soho Theatre which revolved around similar minimalist overtly sexual / punk performance art aesthetic of skimpy costumes and slut-dropping backing dancers. We’re clearly living through a cultural age d’or at the moment!).



Seeing Peaches in concert is comparable to seeing fierce dominatrix-from-outer-space Grace Jones: afterwards you can’t stop babbling, “Wasn’t she amazing?!” Peaches apparently turned 50 years old on this UK tour. Suffice to say, present-day Peaches is filthy, fabulous and 50. She is an artist at the top of her game – and makes me burst with Canadian pride. Who else is flipping over the hidebound stale, pale and male world of rock with such élan and joie de vivre? Now sing along with me: “At the dawn of the Summer I give birth to a bad girl / without a motherfuckin' epidural …”

The beautiful crisp photos are by Pal. The rubbish ones are mine (my camera couldn’t cope with Peaches’ smoke machine!). See the full set on my flickr page.

/ Above: Jemimah, Tara, Pal and I in the front row, bitches! /

















Further reading: both The Observer and The Guardian gave Peaches' 2016 UK tour concerts five star reviews!



/ Play this LOUD! /



/ Modern queer performance art royalty: Peaches and Christeene dueting /

Kembra Pfahler's Capital Improvements at Emalin Gallery 15 November 2016

Tuesday night (15 November) was the private view of “Capital Improvements”, a solo art exhibit by provocative New York performance artist and punk front-woman Kembra Pfahler at Emalin gallery in Shoreditch at Emalin gallery in Shoreditch (from 16 November – 21 December 2016).

The Facebook event page promised the private view would incorporate a live performance by the perennially-fierce Pfahler’s theatrical glitter-punk revue The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. I’ve been a hardcore fan of VHKB since the nineties, have all their CDs and often a drop a song of theirs into my sets when I DJ at Lobotomy Room. What an exciting development! VHKB almost never perform in London. The last time was their triumphant appearance at The Meltdown Festival in 2012 – an unforgettable shimmering spectacle of decadence! (Read about it here). Would this little independent gallery in East London have the budget to fly over the whole band and backing dancers that make up VHKB for a free one-off performance?

The private view party was meant to last 6 pm – 9 pm. Pal and I rocked up shortly past six to get a look around and scope a good spot to watch the performance. The exhibit itself is fascinating: Pfahler has lived in the same tiny rent-controlled studio apartment in New York for many years and the gallery has faithfully recreated her living space. (Pfahler’s life is her art statement: she’s one of those people who looks like a walking piece of art. Her idiosyncratic apartment and its artefacts is part of her performance). It’s a beautiful, compact space with every surface painted the deep shade of dried blood, surrounded by eerie dolls and multiple portraits of Pfahler in all her ghastly, macabre beauty.

Promisingly, the makeshift performance space in the corner was a decent set-up: a tiny high stage with the official VHKB logo (Batman with a pendulous pair of female tits) emblazoned on a flag behind it. (You must exclaim, “A little stage!” like Dawn Davenport in Female Trouble at this point). There was three microphone stands lined up and no musical equipment, so clearly the actual band wasn’t there and Pfahler would be singing to taped musical accompaniment, which was fine by me.

My friend Emma and her girlfriend Pippa joined us. Princess Julia and Marc Almond were both there too. Time started to drag. And then drag some more. There was no sign of the artist herself. The venue started seriously filling up with a nice mix of freaky club kids, punks, Goths, androgynes and the kind of weirdos who only emerge by night you hope to encounter at events like this. Talking amongst ourselves we started speculating, “I wonder when this thing is actually going to start?”

Finally, a glimpse of a huge exploding haystack of black bouffant hair emerged from around the corner. It wasn’t Pfahler – it was one of her troupe of backing dancers. (Pfahler always performs accompanied by a gang of identical semi-naked dancing girls styled to look just like her – the VHKB equivalent of Ike and Tina Turner Revue’s Ikettes). She came out and cavorted a bit wielding one of the VHKB dolls. I think this one was called Phoebe. Grateful for the spectacle, everyone cheered when she announced the show would begin shortly. People snapped her photo. Phoebe grinned with blacked-out teeth. But time stretched on with nothing happening. There wasn’t even music playing to create a bit of atmosphere. Occasionally another VHKB dancer would appear, introduce themselves and promise the show would start imminently.

By now we were getting seriously impatient and pissed-off and the gallery was growing hotter and more claustrophobic. Eventually another VHKB dancer came onstage (this time, a guy in drag. The troupe was mixed gender), introduced himself and announced the show would begin shortly but first – some go-go dancing! This is what I can piece together in retrospect: Pfahler herself was missing in action and not even on the premises at this point. The go-go dancing was intended to pad things out while they tracked down Pfahler. Her “backing dancers” were local London-based people assembled at the last minute (apparently) for this performance. (There wouldn’t have been the budget to fly over Pfahler’s regular New York girls). I suspect the auditioning process for them wasn’t terribly rigorous. The first glimpse of them in their identical virtually-naked, body-painted and bewigged get-ups was genuinely dazzling. That image – sexy alien, zombie woman, devil doll, voodoo dolly – is powerful and alluring.  But it got tired fast with no substance or action behind it. For what seemed like an eternity, we were subjected to a cavalcade of onstage exhibitionists not exactly burdened with talent, charisma or even basic dancing ability listlessly jiggle around a bit (you wouldn’t call it “go-go dancing”) to whatever Pfahler’s agent or manager or whoever it was happened to have on the iTunes library on his iPad (“Paranoia” by Black Sabbath. “You Really Got Me” by the Kinks. Loads of terrible seventies stadium cock rock). They fanned each other with feathers, yawned, lit candles, sat on each other. More frequently, they just stood around onstage talking amongst themselves, slack-jawed and gormless. Up close you could see where their body paint had worn off in patches. It was frankly embarrassing.

Things felt increasingly shambolic and inept. The gallery had zero control over the event and seemed out of their depth. The night began with such optimism but all good will was evaporating fast. I had visions of it descending into a club kid equivalent of Day of the Locust-style chaos. I assured Pal (a VHKB virgin), “This will be over by 9 pm! Something must be happening soon!” But he left and I couldn’t blame him. You know that sense of blind rage you feel when you’re trapped on a train platform and the indicator shows “cancelled” and “delayed” but you get no other updates or useful information and you get so furious you want to strangle someone? I can only compare it to that.

The nadir was when another dancer took the mic to promise, “Kembra is on her way! She should be here in at least thirty minutes!” That’s when we realized she wasn’t even there.  A fed-up Emma and Pippa left, certain Pfahler probably wouldn’t even turn up at this stage. Luckily I found another friend to hang out with – Nicole. By now, all the complimentary booze had long since run out. The door to the sole toilet had a sign announcing it was out of order. Nicole and I were bursting for a slash. We left the gallery and found a pub around the corner where we could go for a piss and drink a half pint killing time.  Before we split, we cornered one of Pfahler’s dancers in the crowd and asked for any kind of update. She confessed she had no clue what was going on or where Kembra Pfahler was. No one was telling her anything either.

There was still no change when Nicole and I got back to the gallery but we both decided to stick it out a bit longer to see what might happen. Finally, there was a ripple of excitement: Kembra had arrived! Another sighting of a jet-black, glitter-dusted wig slicing through the crowd. After so many false starts, this time it was attached to Pfhaler herself. She finally took the stage at 9:15 pm. Her set was short (maybe 25-30 minutes), but mercifully it was good and did compensate for the preceding fiasco up to a point. On the downside, Pfahler seemed distracted and scatter-brained (perhaps her default setting?) and apologised they’d done no rehearsals. (By this point she’d been in London for about a week to prepare for the show. I wonder how she spent her time?). Pfahler admitted they were “unprepared” and encouraged people to return the following night and she’d do a few more performance pieces to compensate.

Pfahler sang maybe four songs, focusing on new (unreleased) material. The song where she enthused about her favourite scenes from Blade Runner while hobbling around with her feet duct-taped to bowling balls was genuinely weird and funny. She did some onstage butt-printing (where Pfahler smeared finger paint on her ass and pressed it onto paper). I forgave Pfahler almost everything for her inspired screeching death metal version of Celine Dion’s love theme from Titanic. It culminated with Pfahler standing on her head with legs spread and genitalia exposed. One of her dancers stood over her threateningly wielding a white wooden crucifix whittled into a sharp point at the end. We all gasped – and sure enough, she abruptly spiked it hard downwards directly into Pfahler’s anus! It was genuinely shocking, like something out of the Ken Russell film The Devils. (Afterwards the crucifix got flung into the audience – someone claimed the crucifix that had been jabbed into Pfahler’s ass hole). They all filed offstage to Benny Hill’s theme tune.

So … Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. In the past year Pal and I have seen topnotch queer-punk performance art by the likes of Christeene and Peaches in London. Like VHKB, they all incorporate various degrees of onstage nudity, mixed-gender scantily-clad backing dancers and confrontational punk minimalism.  Pfahler is an undisputed doyenne or godmother of this whole genre or approach - in fact maybe she invented it! Peaches and Christeene came in her wake - and have now raised the standard and overtaken her with tighter, slicker and frankly better shows. Most importantly – they turn up on time! In New York Pfahler is justly regarded as performance art royalty. But her lateness at Emalin was borderline contemptuous. Judging by Tuesday night, in 2016, Kembra Pfahler needs to significantly raise her game.

/ See the rest of my photos here /