Artist, provocateur, trailblazer. The first London retrospective of acclaimed British artist Linder (b. 1954) opens at The Hayward Gallery on 11 February. Danger Came Smiling spans 50 years’ work, from famous photomontages to previously unseen pieces. The body and its photographic representation, from early glamour photography to digital deep fakes, is central to Linder’s approach to image-making. In this show, our shifting attitudes – to aspirational lifestyles, sex, food and fashion – are brought into stark focus.
Linder, described by Chief Curator Rachel Thomas as “one of the great maverick artists of the British scene”, rose to prominence amidst the punk and post-punk music of 1970s Manchester. Her raw DIY style, which blends imagery cut from fashion and lifestyle magazines with provocative visuals, lent itself to the likes of Buzzcocks, for whom she designed album covers. Her photomontage for the band’s 1977 single Orgasm Addict, for example, became an instant icon of the moment; it depicts a nude woman with an iron for a head and grinning mouths covering her nipples. Since then, Linder has ventured into other realms, including fashion, performance, perfume, textiles and film. She’s now an internationally renowned artist.
Throughout her career, Linder has used photomontage as a potent instrument for dissecting and reshaping the portrayal of gender norms and sexual identity. Her source material, taken from 20th century magazines, reveals the stereotypes imposed on both men and women: automobiles, DIY culture and pornography for men; fashion and domesticity for women. Often using a medical grade scapel, she scrambles and rearranges these images as a means of feminist protest and a critique of cultural conventions. “The cuts made by my blades and scissors are perpetually liberating,” the artist explains. “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.”
Beyond punk, Linder’s subversive 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. Now, at Hayward Gallery, her work is displayed alongside that of fellow collagist Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971), whose concurrent show All About Love presents vibrant, large-scale portraits of Black women at rest. Thomas’ compositions are likewise about reclaiming space and representation in male-dominated art history, from which Black and LGBTQIA+ people have been excluded. Gallery Director Ralph Rugoff notes: “The Hayward Gallery is dedicating this season to two masters of contemporary collage and the provocative, multi-levelled thinking it makes possible.”
Linder: Danger Came Smiling and Mickalene Thomas: All About Love. 11 February – 5 May 2025.
Image Credits:
1. Linder, SheShe, (1981). Silver bromide photographs from original negative. Courtesy of the artist; Modern Art, London; Blum, Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York; Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Paris and dépendance, Brussels. Photo: birrer.
2. Linder, Principle of Totality (Version I), (2012), detail. Image © Linder. Courtesy of the artist; Modern Art, London; Blum, Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York; Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Paris and dépendance, Brussels.
