You may be familiar with Linder’s feminist photomontages from gallery shows or at least on the cover of Buzzcocks’ Orgasm Addict in 1977 but don’t miss her retrospective exhibition at Musée d’art Moderne in Paris.
Her early montages depict soft-porn scenes invaded by the shiny tat of domestic technology – 50s housewives with brains transformed in electric appliances. It gets more and more risque with wafting white curtains concealing the explicit nature of the images – which only serve to enhance the voyeurism.
Linder’s work is full of contrasts as she pits 40s women’s magazines (fashion and romance) with men’s magazines (cars and women) and covers porn scenes with roses and cream cakes (her step grandfather had her read pornographic magazines at the age of 6, and as a teenager she had been politicised by Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch). Occasionally she will spread her body with custard or wear raw meat dresses despite being a staunch vegetarian.
In her recent work Fancy Man, 2011, the cream cakes invoke a little disgust, and the large light boxes, like urban publicity panels, accentuate the commerciality of the lucrative porn industry. Faithful to her punk and feminist spirit, she denounces excessive trivialisation, violence or pornography where women become disjointed dolls.
After the exhibition it’s hard to escape red lips everywhere: Yazbukey’s necklace at Colette and snacks at Picard…
LINDER Femme/Objet – until April 21st
