Linder Sterling

British artist Linder Sterling (born 1954) first emerged in the late 1970s as a prominent figure within the dynamic landscapes of punk and post-punk music, and later went on to become an internationally recognized artist renowned for her multifaceted practice. Throughout her career, Linder has used photomontage as a potent instrument for dissecting and reshaping the portrayal and commercialization of gender norms and sexual identity. Drawing from source materials extracted from magazines of the late 20th 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, which navigate concepts of personal invention and the performative dimensions of identity. Her art is informed by a rich tapestry of influences spanning religious art, surrealism, mysticism and the ever-evolving landscape of social media.
With an introduction by Rachel Thomas, new essays by Chris Kraus and Marina Warner, a new interview with Gilly Fox and a chronology by Katie Guggenheim, this book is the comprehensive guide to Linder’s world and work.

The art of Linder (born 1954) made its public debut not in galleries but in punk fanzines and as art for the sleeve of the Buzzcocks' first single, "Orgasm Addict." Accompanying the first in-depth survey of Linder’s work in the UK, Linderism reproduces works from across her career, from her punk collages to her recent work, and offers four new perspectives on her wide-ranging practice by James Boaden, Alyce Mahon, Amy Tobin and Sarah Victoria Turner.

The essays address Linder’s early photomontages forged in the crucible of punk and postpunk culture in the North-West of England, as well as more recent shifts in her practice encompassing spirituality, the occult and the surreal. Linderism includes extensive documentation of working drawings and research images—the materials that have long formed the basis of her practice—as well as documentation of works included in the survey exhibition.

Linder’s photomontages violate, liberate and celebrate the human body to question the mechanics of gender and its ties to consumer culture and media.

Linder is best known for her pioneering photomontages that replace the sexualised imagery of soft-focus pornographic centrefolds with commodities of domestic middle-class life. Surprising, humorous, and at times shocking, these precise compositions bring to light the powerful fantasies and repressions that underlie our social expectations of identity.

Spanning almost four decades, this monograph interweaves numerous photomontage series throughout Linder’s career, demonstrating the artist’s manipulation of disparate source material – from brightly saturated male pornographic imagery to softly lit portraits of ballerinas. Accompanying over 250 illustrations, a conversation between the artist and Dawn Ades reconciles her work with the history of photomontage.