PREVIEWS
Photography of Linder, 1983. Courtesy the artist
ART & LIT
LINDERISM @ HATTON GALLERY
Words: Elodie A. Roy The Hatton Gallery is reopening its doors with a solo exhibition of works by visual artist and musician Linder Sterling. The spirit of Linderism first appeared in Thatcher’s ‘no alternative’ Britain, as Sterling started performing with Ludus and designing record sleeves for Manchester punk and post-punk acts like
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Buzzcocks. The retrospective at the Hatton takes us from these early punk photomontages and photographs to Sterling’s more recent forays into film and performance art. Like feminist collage artist Barbara Kruger, Sterling borrows, juxtaposes and rearranges images found in books and glossy magazines, unlocking their latent narratives. Her work probes into the mechanisms of desire, identity and alienation in consumer culture. Linderism, a spiritual child of Dada, pop art and Situationism, has kept alive something of British pop artist Richard Hamilton’s refreshing irreverence. It is therefore fitting that the
exhibition should be shown in the same building where Hamilton set up his studio in the 1950s, and busied himself deflating the bubble of post-war bourgeois bliss. Yet there is more to Linderism than a one-dimensional critique of capitalism and its poisoned glossiness. For over forty years, Sterling has been outlining a constellation of possible visions – courageously showing us that there may be alternatives. Linderism is at Hatton Gallery from Saturday 7th November until Saturday 23rd January www.hattongallery.org.uk
