Sorcha Dallas

Linder: ‘King’s Ransom (Hybrid Tea)’
16th April – 22nd May 2010 Opening Hours during Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, Daily 11am-6pm. Normal opening hours will be resumed after the Festival, Tues- Sat, 11am-5pm

Sorcha Dallas is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in the gallery by the seminal artist, performer and musician Linder. ‘King’s Ransom (Hybrid Tea)’ will bring together a range of works including collages, collaborative photographs, older drawings and a new sculptural work with the aim of highlighting the breadth of the artist’s practice. The extension of the exhibition will be a unique thirteen hour performance, ‘The Darktown Cakewalk: Celebrated from the House of FAME’, to be staged at The Arches on 23rd April, then touring to Chisenhale Gallery, London on the 10th of July.

Exhibited in the first gallery are a series of collaborative photographs and collages from 2009, entitled ‘Oh Grateful Colours, Bright Looks’. The title is taken from a poem by the same name by Stevie Smith with the images being shot by the respected fashion photographer Tim Walker for an i-D shoot in autumn 2009. Walker’s sumptuous images were shot on film using natural light with the vivid colours creating a Disneyesque quality. In the images Linder is shown in a variety of garments from her collaboration with emerging fashion designer Richard Nicoll. For this collection Linder’s prints and interest in underwear as outerwear were used as inspiration for Nicoll’s capsule collection. Older masks that the artist made in the 1970s were adapted and the tonal range muted to echo Laduree’s candy shop palette. Linder is shown in a series of poses mimicking the idea of the suburban housewife, with the costumes and poses suggesting a less submissive stereotype. Seemlessly the artist has collaged a variety of roses, obscuring and altering the images, thus creating a sense of suburban disquiet. These images beautifully display Linder’s enthusiasm for collaboration and the inspirational effect she has continued to have over many years on a number of artists, designers and musicians.

The second gallery contains early drawings, a new sculptural work and collages. The collages are from 2009 and continue the artist’s interest in using found images of glamour models. In earlier bodies of works these figures were overlaid with household utensils to create monstrous hybrids but for this new series decadent cakes and candies have been used. Through using these sugary confections over the erotically posed figures visual saturation takes effect which reflects the apathy felt towards contemporary consumption and obsession with overtly sexual imagery. Alongside these collages are shown a series of previously unseen pornography drawings from 1977. The hesitant mark making belies the original source material. As the artists has commented on these works:

“Instead of continuing with my life-drawing classes, I had drawn the semi-naked women in men’s pornographic magazines. This was as much a political act as driven by curiosity. Pornography had its own debased codes, and my intention was to understand them. Not to ‘borrow’ them, and never to collude with them. But to understand them seemed and seems important.”

The final piece is a new sculpture ‘Shee Pleaded Not Guiltie’. This piece is fashioned from an old accordion, witching ball, found mirror, gentleman’s stay and the artist’s shoes. This staged set up creates a conflict of positions-seemingly submissive, open yet resistant. When positioned behind the work the pornography drawing is reflected in the mirror creating a connection to the opened leg set up of the artist’s shoes. The seemingly private act taking place within the drawing is mirrored and reflected becoming a public event with the viewer being all to aware of their observatory position, thus reflecting the passivity of the ‘gaze’ within pornography. The accordion is one of the instruments being used for Linder’s forthcoming performance. The effect the instrument has on the rhythm and movement of the body has a sexual subtext but by placing the witching ball alongside it (a device used to repel) this position seems contradicted. This theatrical set up is developed further in the unique thirteen hour performance ‘The Darktown Cakewalk: Celebrated from the House of FAME’ being performed at The Arches on the 23rd April 2010. This piece will be the ultimate collage and will see Linder collaborate with the musician Stuart McCallum (The Cinematic Orchestra), the fashion designer Richard Nicoll (also Creative Director, Cerruti), as well as dancers and musicians from varied disciplines and traditions. In the months leading to the performance Linder undertook a residency at The Work Room at Tramway, working with a number of their professional dancers. Students of Cardonald College have also been involved in assisting with the fabrication of the garments. The Darktown Cakewalk (newly commissioned by Glasgow International, produced by Sorcha Dallas) is an epic invocation of glamour and fantastical pageantry. Witch trials and beauty queens, rag time and Euro Pop merge to enfold the viewer in a secret history of diversity and dissent. As described by The New York Times:

“Linder’s performance recalls Dada antics and eccentrics like the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a poet and sculptor who turned up at New York Dada parties in the 1920s wearing a birdcage or tail-lights, as well as more contemporary performance artists like Carolee Schneemann, Marina Abramovic or Hannah Wilke.”

Linder’s fusion of high fashion and fine art is at once aggressive and visionary. Booking is essential for this event. Please contact The Arches box office 0141 565 1000 or www.thearches.co,uk. £6 for day pass ticket.

Over the last three decades Linder has used music, performance and collage as a vehicle for the examination of self through which she questions the commodification of the female form within society. She was involved in the Manchester music scene in the 70s and 80s through performing in her band Ludus, collaborating on the fanzine The Secret Public with Jon Savage and creating album artwork including the 1977 Buzzcock’s sleeve Orgasm Addict. This infamous sleeve was from a series of collages combining naked images of glamour models with household utensils, creating monstrous hybrids which reflected the apathetic sexism of the time. In recent performances she has adopted the personas of Ann Lee and Clint Eastwood as a way of combining cross-historical identification with the disruption of gender norms.

Linder was born in 1954 in Liverpool. She has recently presented solo shows at Stuart Shave/ Modern Art, London (2008), Baltic, Gateshead (2007) and PS1/Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007). Recent group shows include ‘The Dark Monarch’ (Tate St Ives, Cornwall, 2009), ‘After Twilight’ (Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 2009), ‘Crossroads’ (Salamanca Institute of Culture, Salamanca, 2008), ‘Cohabitation’ (Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan, 2008) and ‘Punk. No One is Innocent’ (Kunsthalle Vienna, 2008). Her work is included in both the Tate Britain and Tate Modern collections. Linder is based in Heysham, Lancashire.

With thanks to: Stuart Shave, Kirk McInroy, Katrina Brown and all at Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. Check out Linder’s blog detailing her preparations for her forthcoming performance: www.ctbureau.co.uk/editions/the-protagonist-linder-sterling http://soundcloud.com/gifestival/interview-with-the-artist-linder

. Please contact the gallery for further information and images: tel + 44 (0) 141 553 2662 / info@sorchadallas.com