Leigh Bowery! Tate Modern (closes on 31.08.25)

The Leigh Bowery! retrospective exhibition is now in it’s closing week, after a successful six month tenure at the Tate Modern in London. An immersive journey into the life and legacy of Australian-born performance artist, designer and club provocateur Leigh Bowery (1961 - 1994).

The below gallery shows several pages from the accompanying extensive exhibition book. Featuring images from Dave Swindells’s archive (Time Out Club Editor from 1986 - 2001) along with Derek Ridgers club archive.

Both Dave and Derek photographed London’s diverse and rich club culture during the 1980’s, notably the infamous and decadent club hosted by Leigh Bowery ‘Taboo’ where defiant outrageousness challenged conservative norms and the crowd that frequented it became legendary.

Subcultures, ExhbitionSarah AppelhansAugust 26, 2025Derek Ridgers archive, Leigh Bowery

Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London @ Fashion & Textile Museum

On Friday 4th October 2024, the Fashion & Textile Museum in Bermondsey launches their new exhibition ‘Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80’s London’. Derek Ridgers image of Leigh Bowery photographed in his home in 1987 is selected as the poster image and will be available as a limited edition print. The exhibition runs until March 2025.

SubculturesSarah AppelhansOctober 1, 2024Derek Ridgers archive, Leigh Bowery

Sofa Sessions: Martin Parr & Derek Ridgers in Conversation

Derek Ridgers was invited to the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol to be interviewed for Martin’s ‘Sofa Sessions’ series. They discuss Derek’s photographic career and his extensive youth culture archive.

InterviewSarah AppelhansSeptember 17, 2024Derek Ridgers archive

Derek Ridgers: 'The London Youth Portraits' ACC Art Books

Between 1978 and 1987, renowned British photographer Derek Ridgers captured London youth culture in all its glory. With skinheads, punks, and new romantics, in clubs and on the street, his images have come to define a seminal decade of British subculture.

Derek's latest book 'The London Youth Portraits' published by ACC Art Books, celebrates his finest portraiture from this period, including unpublished portraits.

Photographic BookSarah AppelhansMay 21, 2024Derek Ridgers archive

Derek Ridgers: KU / Ibiza '84 Photo Zine

'I only visited Ku once and that was in 1984. It was the night Divine played. It was a bit like Camden Place transposed to the Med. The building itself was like no other club I’ve been to before or since, insofar as it was more like a James Bond film set than a club. Half of it was in the open air, there was a swimming pool and a water slide in the shape of the neck of a dragon.'

Photographic BookSarah AppelhansApril 25, 2024Ibiza 1984, Photo Zine, Derek Ridgers archive

Derek Ridgers: Pearls, Pins & Provocateurs...

HighSnobiety licensed Derek Ridgers snogging couple image taken at the club Gossips 1978 for their editorial feature ‘Pearls, Pins & Provocateurs’ on how the punk aesthetic continues to influence fashion and challenge social norms.

image license, EditorialSarah AppelhansMarch 19, 2024Derek Ridgers archive

Derek Ridgers Blitz Club archive / Bundeskunsthale, Bonn Exhibition

Derek Ridgers 80's club portraits exhibiting in Everything at Once: Postmodernity, 1967 - 1992, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn. The great age of subcultures, disco, punk and techno-pop and shoulder pads! Exhibition runs until 24th January 2024.

Photographic ExhibitionSarah AppelhansDecember 7, 2023Derek Ridgers archive, subcultures

10 Magazine Art Portfolio x Derek Ridgers Blitz Club Archive

Derek Ridgers relives his nights at the Blitz Club and delved into archive, featuring pictures of the era-defining New Romantic club night for a 12 page Art Portfolio article in issue 70 of 10 Magazine.

Editorial, Fashion EditorialSarah AppelhansApril 19, 2023Derek Ridgers archive

Young Limbs Rise Again: The Story of the Batcave Nightclub 1982 – 1984

‘Young Limbs Rise Again’ is a limited edition vinyl and cd box set and book that celebrate the subculture of Goth from the music played and bands that performed at the legendary Batcave, a weekly club night hosted at the heart of Soho’s Dean Street in the early 1980s.

image licenseSarah AppelhansMarch 3, 2023subcultures, Photography Book, Derek Ridgers archive

Blitz Club Era Archives x 'TRAMPS!'

Unravel Productions consulted on the film ‘Tramps’ by director Kevin Hegge licensing Blitz Club era imagery from the archives of renowned subculture photographer Derek Ridgers and photographer and anthropologist Ted Polhemus.

TRAMPS! is a feature-length documentary that looks at how, in London in the 1980s, an onslaught of art students arriving in the city resulted in a unique cross-fertilization of British art, fashion, music and film which created a flourish of creative output, culminating in a group known as "The New Romantics"

Photographic Agency