Bat Girls and Acid Boys

About Bat Girls and Acid Boys

120 vivid “exquisite corpse” drawings made by the outrageous artist, performer, and designer Leigh Bowery with friends and collaborators during the 1980s and 1990s.

In the wild years of the 1980s and early 1990s, when central London was a clubbers’ paradise, a circle of young, queer friends, including the celebrated Australian designer, performer, musician, and provocateur Leigh Bowery and his Minty bandmates would get together at Richard Torry’s Soho flat before hitting the town.

To pass the time, the troupe would sometimes make “exquisite corpses,” employing a technique popular with the Surrealists to create collaboratively-drawn compound images of often outrageous characters.

The 120 images collected here, assembled from the Richard Torry archive, showcase the acerbic wit, lysergic absurdity, and sometimes cruel gaze of the young friends, while presenting an exaggerated snapshot of the era’s styles, fashions, and obsessions.