Are you ready for an exhibition that will completely change how you look and interact with art, photography and imagery? Even if your answer is no, the Linder: Danger Came Smiling exhibit at the Hayward Gallery in Southbank is definitely one you need to check out.
One of my favourite things to do is spend the afternoon (evening, morning, or whole day now that I come to think about it) getting lost in a gallery or exhibition, so when I had the chance to spend the morning – despite it being super early – Linder Sterling’s exhibit, I couldn’t have been happier. Exploring over five decades of Linder’s work, this retrospective offers an interesting glimpse at her artistic journey from the 1970s to 2025, and delves deep into our obsession with the body, gender and sex.
Known for her work transmuting and manipulating imagery taken from fashion and consumer mags, and pornography to offer fresh perspectives on society’s views on social structures, identity and power, this exhibit covered all that and more with a slice of humour and a heavy of intrigue. (And as someone new to her art, I was immediately captivated and enthralled, though I must admit not everything was for me like the highly sensorial sploshing series).
One thing that stuck out to me was her seeming use love of collage (or as the professionals call it: photomontage), and how she would use these new pieces to subvert the intent of the original images. Take her photomontages of flower cutouts stuck over the body parts of female pornographic models or the combining images of industrial objects with photos of naked male models to bring new meanings to the viewers.
Another standout (and probs my favourite) was her collaboration with photographer birrer. As a photographer myself, there was something about these photos that reminded me of long afternoons spent experimenting with different poses, angles and shots, trying to find the perfect way to represent a theme I had in mind that day. These images by birrer reference a sense of “hiding, searching and finding”, the theme of her 1981 LP Pickpocket, and “explore the fluidity of identity through display and concealment”. I loved these photos because of the tension between the model (Linder) and the viewer. Though it’s obvious she’s trying to hide or restrict the viewer from seeing her full self, there’s also a feeling that she still wants to be seen or found on some level – and that constant push and pull of hiding but still being seen is so enticing. To be completely honest, these shots really inspired me, so stay tuned for a future update to my photography portfolio.
Linder: Danger Came Smiling is open at the Hayward Gallery in Southbank from 11th February to 5th May.