Fergus Greer was born in the United Kingdom, and brought up in Southern Ireland. Studied BA (Hons) at St Martins School of Art and Fashion, London, and then graduated from The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (Lt. into The Guards Brigade, infantry). After leaving the army, Greer worked for a number of photographers and became assistant to Terence Donovan and Richard Avedon. Following this he started as freelance photographer, based in London for the next 6 years - on contract for The London Sunday Times Magazine (for covers) and other magazines. In the autumn of 1997, he moved to Los Angeles and started establishing himself as a U.S. based photographer, while still working for European publications. 10 years later, in 2007, Greer returns to London.
Greer creates striking and haunting portraits of celebrities of the film and show business and the literary and art scenes, was a war photographer in Kosovo and photographs people and places in Cuba and Brazil. His photographs were published in numerous newspapers and magazines, such as Vanity Fair, New Yorker, Fortune, Worth, Forbes, Newsweek, The Source, New York Times Magazine, ESPN Mag., Premiere, Marie Claire, GQ, Town And Country, and New York Magazine.
His works were exhibited in London, New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Salamanca, Bologna, Venice, Paris, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover and Munich. His Book "Fergus Greer - Leigh Bowery Looks, Photographs 1988-1994" (Violette Editions) was published in 2002.
Leigh Bowery (1961-1994)
Leigh Bowery was a fashion designer, costume and mask builder, performance artist, club promoter, actor, musician and model. Without a doubt, he is among the most brazen creative and influential artists of the 80s and 90s. His boundary pushing work made him the icon of the London sub culture and inspired fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, as well as musicians such as Boy George.
Born in Sunshine, a small Australian suburb of Melbourne, the multi-talented 19-year-old Leigh Bowery escapes from his homeland in his perception a cultural desert to London in 1980. London is the place where he wants to live and realise his ideas about fashion and costume design. The club scene in London becomes his new home, his experimentation field and his most important stage. He closes friendships with countless artists, who were to become important on his future path, such as performance artist Trojan (Guy Barnes), the film makers Baillie Walsh and John Maybury, the musician and fashion designer Richard Torry as well as the film maker and artist Ceryth Wyn Evans.
Bowery participates in fashion shows in London, New York and Japan. With his sensational, self-made and self-presented costume creations, he becomes the Icon of the London subculture. He is a welcomed guest in clubs worldwide, has appearances in TV shows and at exhibitions, designs costumes for the company of choreographer and dancer Michael Clark and acts in his plays, as well as creating stage costumes for various musicians, among them Boy George and Holly Johnson of Frankie goes to Hollywood.
Appears in "Hey Luciano" by Mark E. Smith, front man of the post punk-band The Fall and represents "Madame Garbo" in Copi's (Raul Damonte) play "The Homosexual (or the Difficulty of Sexpressing Oneself)". He acts in films by Maybury and Evans, avant-garde videos by Charles Atlas and as prostitute in Boy Georges video clip "Generations of Love" - and is artistic director of the Massive Attack one-shot-videos "Unfinished Sympathy". Finally he forms the band "Minty" and shocks and amuses not only through vocals and appearance, but particularly through his notorious performances.
From 1985-87 Bowery operates the Nightclub "Taboo" at London Leicester Square, together with Tony Gordon. "Taboo" quickly becomes Studio 54, albeit a shorter lived, wilder version, with more insane outfits and without masses of celebrities. Here, he not only meets his wife to be and indispensable assistant Nicola Bates, but also the great painter Lucien Freud who immortalises him in his expressive and famous portraits. Boy George pays tribute to Bowery and the Club in the musical "Taboo", premiered in 2002.
On 31st of December 1994, Leigh Bowery dies in London, aged only 33 as a result of an HIV infection.
Leigh Bowery becomes recognised within the international art scene through his solo appearance in the high-end London gallery Anthony d'Offay. There he put himself on display in a specially designed one way mirrored show window, furnished with a divan. For one week, 2 hours a day he could be viewed in changing costumes. Photographer Fergus Greer was amongst the audience of the narcissistic self-reflective performance. This meeting of Bowery and Greer launches the start of the 6 year long photography project, during which cause over 200 portraits were created, until shortly before his death.
A selection of the Bowery-Looks, staged and captured in the sessions (1988 - 1994) is presented in Berlin for the first time. Accompanying this, loftgalerie presents photographs from the recently completed series "butterflies" by Fergus Greer as world premiere.
"When I heard Leigh had died, I cried. The world had lost another couture icon, another mirror ball. Goodbye butterfly, Goodbye Satan's child."
(George Alan O'Dowd)