Linder - The Groom : Paris

Andréhn-Schiptjenko is pleased to announce Linder's fourth exhibition to be held from March 16 to May 6 which will feature previously unseen works.

For The Groom, Linder explores the elasticity of promise and resilience in the Cinderella fairy tale tradition, tracing its path from the story of Ye Xian in China 850, via tales such as the French classic Peau d’Ane, through to contemporary culture’s fascination with “living happily ever after” and the fascination for the instant “make over” of both the body and the home. The exhibition comprises original photomontages ranging from sources as varied as film posters, Cinderella book series and glamour photographs taken by Chinese photographer Daisy Wu in the 1970s, as well as larger formats and reproduction techniques.

“Without trying to prove it again, I take as my starting point the fact that fairy tales mirror collective unconscious material - which leads us to a further general question: if it is collective unconscious material, are there ethical problems in fairy tales?”

Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, Marie-Louise von Franz, 1974.

By performing a visual biopsy of the Cinderella motif, Linder examines and reimagines the contemporary relevance of the fairy tale via her acquired print media collection which spans the last hundred years. The artist uses her surgeon’s scalpel and metzenbaum scissors (the former used for “stab incisions” and the latter for “cutting delicate tissue and blunt dissection”) to open up the guts of the Cinderella tale metaphorically and literally. It’s a cultural postmortem of sorts which in turn opens up the corpus of the story catalogued in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther index of folk tales as type 510A or “The Persecuted Heroine”. 

In The Groom Linder will be exhibiting her signature photomontages but also be exploring other techniques and formats,

Linder, born 1954 in Liverpool, initially rose to fame as an artist and musician in the punk/post-punk arts and music scene in Manchester in the mid 1970s. She is an internationally celebrated artist who applies the principles of collage to the visual languages of graphic design, popular culture, fashion, and fine art in the production of photomontages, performances and installations. The core of her work is a continuous exploration of desire, cultural expectations, and the female body as commodity. Occasionally referring to her works as biopsies Linder’s collages manipulate, disrupt and play with porn, glamour and our notions of beauty.

Selected notable past solo-exhibitions include Linderism, a retrospective accompanied by a catalogue at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge and the Hutton Gallery, University of Newcastle in 2020-2021, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2018); Glasgow Women’s Library (2018); Chatsworth, Derbyshire (2018); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (2013); Tate St Ives, Cornwall (2013); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2010); and Museum of Modern Art/PS1 (2007). Linder was awarded the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award in 2017.

En effectuant une biopsie visuelle du motif de Cendrillon, Linder examine et réimagine la pertinence contemporaine du conte de fées par le biais de sa collection de médias imprimés datant des cent dernières années. L'artiste utilise son scalpel et ses ciseaux de chirurgien (le premier utilisé pour les "incisions à l'arme blanche" et le second pour "couper les tissus délicats et la dissection émoussée") pour ouvrir métaphoriquement et littéralement les entrailles du conte de Cendrillon. Il s'agit d'une sorte de post-mortem culturel qui, à son tour, ouvre le corpus de l'histoire cataloguée dans la classification Aarne-Thompson-Uther des contes populaires comme type 510A ou "L'héroïne persécutée". 

Linder, née en 1954 à Liverpool, s'est d'abord fait connaître en tant qu'artiste et musicienne sur la scène artistique et musicale punk/post-punk de Manchester au milieu des années 1970. Étant une artiste de renommée internationale elle applique les principes du collage aux langages visuels du graphisme, de la culture populaire, de la mode et des beaux-arts dans la production de photomontages, de performances et d'installations. Le cœur de son travail est une exploration continue du désir, des attentes culturelles et du corps féminin en tant que marchandise. Faisant parfois référence à ses œuvres comme à des biopsies, les collages de Linder manipulent, perturbent et jouent avec le porno, le glamour et nos notions de beauté.

Parmi ses expositions individuelles passées, on peut citer Linderism, une rétrospective accompagnée d'un catalogue à Kettle's Yard, Cambridge et à la Hutton Gallery, Université de Newcastle en 2020-2021, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2018) ; Glasgow Women's Library (2018) ; Chatsworth, Derbyshire (2018) ; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (2013) ; Tate St Ives, Cornwall (2013) ; Chisenhale Gallery, Londres (2010) ; et Museum of Modern Art/PS1 (2007). Linder a reçu le prix de la Fondation Paul Hamlyn en 2017.