Leigh Bowery: Queer In fashion,queer in art

Abstract

This article considers questions raised by the fashion and performance artist Leigh Bowery (1961–1994) regarding the visual articulation of queer. Following Tim Dean, Joan Copjec and others, it predicates its reading on a particular definition of queer that comes from psychoanalysis, especially the theories of Jacques Lacan. I argue that Leigh Bowery is in fact a paradigm of queer sexualities when they are understood as an instance of transgressive jouissance. Bowery articulates visually precisely what cannot be uttered, and so represents the disruptive potential of fashion queered.