Linder: Danger Came Smiling
11th February, 2025 – 5th May, 2025
Hayward Gallery
Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road,
London SE1 8XX
Full price standard: £19 (also includes entry to Mickalene Thomas: All About Love)
Concessions available & Southbank Centre Members go free
The Hayward Gallery presents the first London retrospective of acclaimed British artist Linder from 11 February to 5 May 2025. Offering an illuminating overview of this iconic artist’s 50 year-long career, the exhibition includes a selection of Linder’s trailblazing photomontages and explores the full range of her artistic practice, underscoring the experimental and feminist impulses of her thought-provoking work.
Danger Came Smiling presents the full trajectory of Linder’s artistic production, from the early work that grew from her involvement in the punk scene of 1970s Manchester to new works that have never been shown before. Linder’s distinct visual language is characterised by a playful irreverence, which investigates the sexual commodification of the female body within magazine culture in order to examine our shifting attitudes to aspirational lifestyles, sex, food and fashion.
Photo Mark Blower
Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery.
Linder first achieved prominence in the 1970s, within the dynamic landscape of punk and post-punk music, gaining widespread recognition with her band, Ludus, and for her groundbreaking album covers. Her photomontage for the cover of Buzzcocks’ 1977 single ‘Orgasm Addict’ endures as one of the emblematic images of the British punk scene. Five decades later, Linder is 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. Beyond the raw and abrasive energy of the DIY punk aesthetic, her artistic vision is informed by a rich tapestry of influences spanning religious art, surrealism, mysticism, pornography and the shifting landscape of social media. The artist’s work is animated by her biting and sometimes outrageous sense of humour.
Linder has used photomontage throughout her career.
Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery
Working with a medical grade scalpel she draws on the violent and creative power of cutting to dissect, reshape and comically deflate the commercial representation of gender norms and sexual identities. Often drawing on images of the body, Linder exposes the weighty stereotypes imposed on both ends of the gender spectrum and their evolution over time. In her striking series of photographs, such as SheShe (1981), Linder is pictured taking on various satirical feminine personae to navigate concepts of personal invention and the performative dimensions of identity.
Invoking the original essence of glamour— a powerful fusion of enchantment and magic – Linder’s work delivers a humorous and cutting feminist critique. At the heart of her artistic practice lies a profound engagement with the poetics of protest, in which artistic inquiry intertwines seamlessly with radical thinking. and critic Chris Kraus and Roden Chief Curator Rachel Thomas. It also includes an in-conversation between Linder and Associate Curator Gilly Fox. Examining the broad spectrum of her work, these essays delve into themes of spirituality, mysticism, surrealism, punk DIY, and transformation.
Photo Mark Blower
Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery
This exhibition supports the Southbank Centre’s commitment as an engine of creative practice to producing new productions and exhibitions. It is curated by Hayward Gallery Roden Chief Curator, Rachel Thomas, with Associate Curator, Gilly Fox, Assistant Curator, Katie Guggenheim, and Curatorial Assistants Charlotte Dos Santos and Hannah Martin.
An adapted version of Linder: Danger Came Smiling will be curated by Hayward Gallery Touring and will tour nationally to Inverleith
Linder: Danger Came Smiling opens on the 11th of February, 2025 until the 5th of May, 2025 at Hayward Gallery
©2025 Hayward Gallery
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