Linder Sterling is a British performance artist who is way cooler than the ‘art’ hags we have here in the states. She has more style more angst and more edgy beauty than anyone in her business. Let’s not even dwell on the fact that she’s pals with Morrissey and has a really cool name.
She is currently the artist in residence at Tate St. Ives . That doesn’t really mean a hill of beans to us but it does offer opportunity for publicity which is exactly what the UK’s London Guardian did this past Sunday. I lovely Q&A with a woman with stories to tell. I hate cut and paste but when it’s interview it’s best I do that so as not to lose the continuity.
Linder is an amazing artist and just plain beautiful. You cant help but admire her for her creativity and forthright demeanor.
Heres the rock and roll side of her Guardian interview
I guess a lot of people still equate you with punk and that provocative sleeve for Orgasm Addict by Buzzcocks in 1977. How important was punk in terms of your development as an artist?
Crucial. When I went to art school in 1973, I was the only member of my family who had education beyond the age of 14. I had to prove to my family that it was justified. But, by 1976, I had become a bit bored by drawing, by my own relentless mark making, so I shifted to the scalpel and destroyed all my drawings. That was a very punk thing – to do something dramatic out of boredom and sweep away the past. So, there was a great synchronicity at work. My practice chimed with the moment. I suddenly found myself in the midst of people who seemed to be thinking along similar lines about the world: Jon Savage, Pete Shelley [Buzzcocks], Howard Devoto [Buzzcocks and Magazine].
Collage was absolutely crucial to punk: from fanzine art to the music and the clothes.
Yes. It was the medium in a very real way. For me, it was about making sense of the world. With collage, you make things wrong to make them right.
You attended the now famous Sex Pistols‘ performance at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester in June 1976. Was it as exciting and galvanising as received wisdom has it?
Oh yes. It was a docking station. The first time I could plug into something new and exciting in its confusion. You just knew something was going on just because it was so different to anything else. There was no attempt at professionalism or entertainment. Things were always on the verge of disintegration onstage and yet there was also this incredible energy emanating from these very glamorous urchins. It was a radical change of gear. I remember thinking, “Oh, I have not been here before and I don’t even have the language to describe what it is.” It really was the last great British underground.
And it inspired you to form your own group, Ludus.
That was a very natural progression. I was collaging myself. Initially it was nerve-racking to step out on to a stage, but I have never been that comfortable with being comfortable.
In 1982, a few decades before Lady Gaga, you performed at the Hacienda in a meat dress. Did it rankle that she attracted so much publicity for repeating the gesture?
A little bit. The lack of acknowledgment. Our generation always acknowledged our influences. That does not seem to happen so much any more. You have to do it, though, otherwise people don’t go on the great journey of discovery that impelled you to become an artist. An artist is not hermetically sealed off from the world. History, after all, is one big dressing-up box.
Everything old is new again my friends. Let us not forget to question what shocks us today- cuz chances are it all happened before.