LONDON.- The Hayward Gallery will present the first London retrospective of acclaimed British artist Linder (b. 1954, Liverpool, UK) from 11 February to 5 May 2025. This solo exhibition will offer an illuminating overview of the past 50 years of this iconic artist's career, exploring the full range of Linder’s thought-provoking work, and underscoring the experimental and feminist impulses of her practice. This exhibition will display a selection of Linder's trailblazing photomontages as well as previously unseen works and new commissions.
Linder first gained prominence in the late 1970s, emerging as a prominent figure within the dynamic landscapes of punk and post-punk music. While she made significant contributions across various artistic media, she gained widespread recognition for her groundbreaking album covers for the punk band Buzzcocks and the album covers of Linder’s post-punk band Ludus.
Linder's distinct style is characterised by ingeniously blending mundane or everyday imagery sourced from fashion and lifestyle magazines with provocative visuals from the realm of pornography. Linder's photomontage on the cover of Buzzcocks’ single ‘Orgasm Addict’ in 1977, instantly became an iconic image of the punk scene.
Following her punk period, Linder went on to become an internationally recognised artist renowned for her multifaceted practice. Linder's journey has been one of relentless exploration, venturing into realms as varied as fashion, music, performance, perfume, textiles, and film. At the heart of her explorations lies a profound engagement with the poetics of protest, where artistic inquiry intertwines seamlessly with cultural critique.
Throughout her career, Linder has used photomontage as a potent instrument for dissecting and reshaping the portrayal and commercialisation of gender norms and sexual identity.
Drawing from source materials extracted from magazines of the late twentieth century, she exposes the weighty stereotypes imposed on both ends of the gender spectrum: automobiles, DIY culture, and pornography for men; fashion and domesticity for women. In addition to using found images from magazines, Linder has also used photographs of herself taking on various feminine personae such as ‘SheShe,’ from 1981 which are satirically staged. These photographs navigate concepts of personal invention and the performative dimensions of identity.
Beyond the raw and abrasive energy of the DIY punk aesthetic, Linder's artistic vision is informed by a rich tapestry of influences spanning religious art, surrealism, mysticism, and the ever-evolving landscape of social media. She often cites figures from art history such as Aubrey Beardsley, Ithell Colquhoun, Richard Hamilton, and Sister Corita Kent as key sources of inspiration. Invoking the original essence of glamour— a captivating fusion of enchantment and magic – Linder deftly scrambles the grammar of glamour to deliver a feminist critique. Through her work, she effectively articulates feminist protest while audaciously challenging traditional cultural conventions.
A publication will accompany this exhibition and the show is also set to tour in 2025.
This exhibition is curated by Chief Curator, Rachel Thomas with Associate Curator, Gilly Fox, Assistant Curator Katie Guggenheim and Curatorial Assistant Charlotte Dos Santos.
Linder says: “I’m thrilled to share a lifetime’s work at the Hayward Gallery. Its Brutalist architecture is the perfect foil for the delicacy of the print ephemera I’ve worked with for over half a century. The cuts made by my blades and scissors are perpetually liberating. Each restores agency across print and page. The found images in my work are often quite fragile both materially and conceptually, it doesn’t take much then to hijack them and to take them somewhere far more surreal."
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.
