Wielcy modele
„Great models are more rare than great artists”; Leigh Bowery, Lucian Freud and Fergus Greer

Summary/Abstract: Waldemar Jnuszczak suggested that great models are more rare than great artists. He wrote on artist-model relations. The text was published in the catalogue, which accompanied the exhibition of photography organised in 2002 at the International Centre of Arts in London. Januszczak believes that there is a difference between “great faces”, such as Mona Lisa, and “great models”, such as Saskia, Victorine Meurent, Manet’s model, Paura, Gaugin’s model, Marie-Therese Walter and Dora Maar, Picasso’s models. At the end of his list, there is Leigh Bowery, who posed for such artists as Fergus Greer and Lucian Freud. Bowery was the subject of photographic exhibition, which was organised in order to “show the model as he was in the reality”. Posing for pictures, Bowery became his own medium. In a photograph dated from 1988, he is dressed in old clothes, and paint comes down from his head onto his face and shoulders. The paint is a kind of camouflage. The picture resembles Andy Warhol’s selfportraits from the 1980’s. In the 1980, Bower frequented the “Taboo’ Club in London. He used to dress in provocative clothes, which he himself designed. He liked bright colours and turpist effects. Michael Clark, a choreographer, employed Bowery as a costume designer in a theatre. Also, Bowery played as an actor in several performance (for example, in a performance entitled “Because we must”, 1987). Bowery was both a model and an artist, who inspired painters and photographers.

• Details
• Contents