LINDER - PRETTY GIRL NO. 1

3 September – 14 October 2007
Level 1 Cube

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art presents a photographic collage exhibition by British artist and active figure in the punk and post-punk movement, Linder. The exhibition contains work from her Pretty Girl No. 1 series and will be shown in the Cube Space at BALTIC from Monday 3 September to Sunday 14 October 2007.

Since the late 1970’s Linder has worked with collages, photomontage, music, film and performance. She unites fantastical and political elements in her collages, and has continued to adapt them to her own specific concerns over the course of her thirty year career.

Her first impact on the public consciousness was through her early punk collages seen in the self published fanzine The Secret Public and on the sleeve for the Buzzcocks debut single, Orgasm Addict.  These confrontational images, bringing together imagery of pornography and kitchen appliances, were genuinely progressive at a time when pornography was not regarded as ubiquitous.

Within Pretty Girls No. 1 the juxtaposition and overlaying of nude figures with household domestic appliances such as TVs, vacuum cleaners and cookers, create striking and graphic compositions. These photomontages use backdrops taken from 1970’s furnishing catalogues; pristine and neutral environments which contrast awkwardly with the nude hybrid creatures that inhabit them. This technique of combining both the sexuality of women and also their domesticity can be seen as an attack on conventional female roles and representation. By using objects generally associated with domesticity it highlights and challenges the notions of power, femininity and consumer culture.

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