Size matters!’ exclaims a chipper Linder Sterling. The British artist, known simply as Linder, is putting the finishing touches on her new show at Kettle’s Yard when I walk into the Cambridge gallery. The exhibition title vinyl needs enlarging before the opening on 15 February; curator Amy Tobin conducts the tape measure with maestra-like finesse and fires off an email with the new measurements to Brussels-based designer Julie Peeters. Linder’s attention turns to a bespoke set of stamps with a claw-hand motif. They arrived moments ago and there’s a flurry of discussion before the first one is christened. Too ginger, perhaps? More gusto, ‘like a post office worker having to do 100 stamps a day’, she declares. Sharp and decisive, the second attempt elicits a satisfied peep of delight. There is an instantly calming quality to Linder, as though her very presence is a balm to the swirling disarray around her. And it’s all too fitting that the first UK retrospective of her work has been named ‘Linderism’. The artist has quietly and stealthily commandeered Kettle’s Yard in a multi-sensory takeover, from the galleries to the House, Research Space, front-of-house staff uniforms, stairwell, café menu, and the neighbouring St Peter’s Church. The survey traces five decades of Linder’s practice, from her emergence in the Manchester punk scene of the 1970s to her provocative feminist photomontages and performances, photography and self-portraits, drawings and recent public art commissions.
Courtesy of WallpaperMagazine