Linder has been cutting up bodies for more than 50 years. More than a hundred are now on show at the Hayward Gallery.
The punk aesthetic of her photomontages is as fresh today as it was in the 70s when her iconic image of a naked female torso with lips for breasts and an iron head graced the cover of the Buzzcocks single Orgasm Addict. A censored version is the poster girl for Danger Came Smiling, the title borrowed from one of Linder’s own post-punk albums. Both the original untitled paper collage and a 2015 lightbox titled It’s the Buzz, Cock! are part of the show.
Most of the works are surprisingly small as they are defined by the magazines they are cut from. Mixing the contradictory portrayals of women in soft porn magazines with those targeted by advertisements for the latest household gadgets, the lines between objectified bodies and eroticised objects become blurred. In more recent works vintage gay porn is photo-montaged with expensive luxury items while another series uses 1930s German imagery to link the allure of idealised body imagery and a return to traditional values to fascist aesthetics. Danger Came Smiling, you’ve been warned!
A series of colourful large-scale performance stills takes centre stage, hovering somewhere between pleasure and disgust. Possibly prompted by posters for the forthcoming retrospective over at Tate Modern, they remind me of a toned-down Leigh Bowery. In another room, an installation of fetish masks feels old-fashioned and tame yet still shares X-Ray Spex’s gritty commentary on man-pleasing commodification in ‘Oh Bondage! Up Yours!’.
There is sex everywhere, a lot less shocking at a time when more extreme images can so easily be accessed online without ever having to leave home in search for a top shelf magazine. In the age of AI Linder stays true to her medium and to her mission of restoring agency to each model. A ‘deepfake’ created from a Playboy centrefold and a portrait of her younger self is one of the previously unseen works in the exhibition.
Retrospectives are all about looking back, but they can also hold up a mirror to the future. In the 70s punk took on the establishment and made fascism look uncool. Punk is dead, long live punk!
Linder: Danger Came Smiling, 11th February – 5th May 2025 Hayward Gallery
Linder will be in conversation with Marina Warner at 7pm on 14th February at the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall
In connection to the exhibition, Linder will collaborate with choreographer Holly Blakey and composer Maxwell Sterling as part of a new residency supported and presented by the Roberts Institute of Art, the Hayward Gallery and Southbank Centre. SCB Scratch Residency – Fragments of Process will see the three artists embark on five days of collaborative experimentation, unfolding as part of the Southbank Centre Studio programme which supports innovation from some of the country’s most
exciting artists. A live sharing of the residency will take place on 28th February.
There will also be a panel discussion with authors and art critics, including leading art historian Dawn Adès, as they delve into the exhibition and the provocative world of Linder’s art at 7pm on Friday 21st March at the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Coinciding with the Hayward Gallery Touring Inverleith House iteration, Linder will present a new performance work made in collaboration with choreographer Holly Blakey, composer Maxwell Sterling and fashion designer Ashish Gupta. The performance is presented and co-commissioned by EAF (Edinburgh Art Festival) and Mount Stuart Trust. The work is in two parts, with the first taking place at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, in June before opening the 21st edition of EAF on 7th August 2025
About the artist
Linder was born in Liverpool in 1954, and lives and works in London. A retrospective of her work, Femme/Objet, was organised in 2013 by the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, later travelling to the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover. Her first institutional survey in the UK, Linderism, was mounted in 2020 at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, later travelling to the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne. Linder has presented recent solo exhibitions at Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Paris (2023); Blum, Los Angeles (2022); Modern Art, London (2019); Glasgow Women’s Library (2018); Nottingham Contemporary (2018); Chatsworth House, Derbyshire (2018); The Hepworth Wakefield (2013); and Tate St Ives (2013). She has participated in recent two-person and group exhibitions at dépendance, Brussels (2022); Tate Liverpool (2021); the Royal Academy, London (2020); Camden Art Centre, London (2020); the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2019); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2019). In 2017, she was awarded the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award. Linder’s works are held in collections including the Arts Council Collection, London; the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Tate, London.
