Live from Nexus Hall: Linder Sterling

0:02Art making can be very sensual and you're young and you're out in the world. It's like, you know, just go dancing, get out. I think whatever you do, just go in deep. It's really surprising, folks, what you can do with a found page, two lips and an eye. Linda, it is so good to be here with you today. You are, of course, a trailblazing artist, a punk icon, and someone who I have had the privilege of knowing for just a little bit over 20 years. It really is, isn't it? Now, you've been called many things over the five decades of your practice, and I want to hear how you describe yourself. Oh, good question.

0:47Sometimes it's quite nice to not be tagged, to not be known. Part of me longs for invisibility at times. So I suppose I would be known as, quite simply, as an artist. I mean, that will cover, these days, a multitude of sins. So, artist. I love that. It was once Linda Mulvey, like Beyoncé. And as I think about it, you were talking about being known. But when our paths first crossed, you were not as well known in London as you were after that first Stuart Shave show. And so I think back to 2007, to our photo shoot with Vogue, the cool young kids on the block, myself, Stuart Shave, Stuart Comer now at MoMA.

1:31You with the prosthetics sprawled across a chair. Could you tell us more? I mean, that moment was, there are certain key photographs in one's life and key moments. And I think that that session really acted as a kind of glue. It brought us all together. You will find I use the motif of glue quite a lot. It's what I do. I'm sticking things together that shouldn't always go together. So I remember that meeting you all, like you say, quite young, not quite knowing what the future ahead was. But thankfully, it's been an extraordinary, extraordinary future, hasn't it? And 20 years ago, that was a particular moment, an inflection in your future.

2:15Yes. With the London show, what happened next in America. Can you tell us a little bit about joining that gallery and what it meant to be back on the London scene in such an electric way? I mean, I went to see, I think Stuart Shave had seen some photomontages at Barbara Gladstone's in New York. And I think he actually wrote a physical letter, which we still did in those days. Dear, you don't know me, but I've seen your work. Do you still make works? And a very polite letter. And then I think I must have either, I presume, replied and said, I do still make works. And I went to Modern Art to meet Stuart.

2:55He's wonderful. He seemed quite a little bit shy. at the time. And I brought some works with me. And it happened to be, I think Freeze was happening maybe 10 days later. And he just said, oh, well, we'll put them in Freeze. It was that. And they sold immediately, which is always good for both artists and gallerists. And I've been with Stuart ever since. Never underestimate the power of a humble letter. It's a good lesson. It was so beautiful. It was so modest. And I'm sure I've kept that letter. I'll have to show it one day. Well, of course, last time we parted, it was in Kyoto. I think we were on a dance floor listening to Ritchie Hawson.

3:38That's true. Somewhere about 1 or 2 a.m. I said, Linda, I'm tired. I'm going home. And you decided to stay. Very impressive. Tell me about that. Can you tell us that image, she, she, which I still remember from that exhibition, did travel to Kyoto along with so much more. Can you tell us about some of the images that you showcased as a highlight of Kyoto-graphy this season? And tell us what you found with these Japanese audiences that you hadn't seen since I think you and Morrissey were there together. That was the last time. And in 1990 with Morrissey, when I took a lot of photographs, by coincidence, When we opened the doors in Kyoto, it would all work so hard.

4:19The installation team would be impeccable. And people flooded in. And what works did they see when they came in? They saw works from over half a century ago, because Shishi now is, you know, almost, well, doing our mass, not long after half a century. And again, thinking, how will people, will this be relevant? And I was so happy to say, predominantly with women, I mean, they just got every nuance, every joke, every pun. They got everything. So hopefully in Tokyo, it will be the same experience. We'll come back to the scalpel, the process, the studio. But first, Liverpool in the height of Beatlemania.

5:00Yes. Can you tell us about the journey from Liverpool to Manchester? Of course. What took you to Manchester and what did you find when you got there? So growing up in Liverpool, one of the first things to say is you were born into football. I mean, it is our shared religion. There are two teams, Liverpool and Everton and by birth. Dare I ask? Liverpool, of course, of course. So you already have popular culture working really hard. You have football teams there. Suddenly you have this group called the Beatles and pop is happening. And because it's so localized that you're in that city and it is happening in your city.

5:40Harold Wilson, my local councillor, becomes prime minister. So there's this sense, growing up as a child, that it's all on your doorstep. And somehow, maybe naively, you think it will always be on your doorstep. It's only now, looking back, thinking, thank goodness I was born at that time in that city with those people. I was watching protest marches there and all the so-called beatnik women with this amazing kind of eye makeup and huge kind of bouffant hair. Is that one, the sense of glamour, that is such a leitmotiv in your work for spirits to evolve? That sense of glamour, which, you know, that word itself at the taproot is all to do with grammar, with language.

6:21And I think watching that early protest marches, there was a glamour there, but also, yeah, the grammar of opposition. You know, I was watching it playing out around me and saying to my mum, why are all these people marching? What's this protest about? So I think those first 10 years in Liverpool still shaped me. It's also a port. So you're importing, exporting goods, but also ideas. Ideas are coming in there. And like any port, you have to be quick-witted. So I think that Liverpool humour, the speed of that, sometimes that's in those photomontages when it takes me like, OK, I've put that cooker on her head.

7:04Done, done. I don't overwork things. If it's a gag, if it's a joke, I'm pretty quick at it sometimes. So you go from that Liverpudlian grammar to Manchester punk. Yes. If you look at the etymology of punk, it's all to do with worthlessness. It's quite interesting. It's to do with that which has absolutely no value. When we heard the word punk in Britain, we were saying, Why is this Americanism being used to describe this experimental music we're doing? But punk really stuck. The tabloids jumped on that word right away. They were photographing us and saying, this is obscene. This is, you know, rebellious, et cetera, et cetera.

7:48The tabloids really loved us. When any new movement in music happens, it's such a, I think, a delicate moment. It's a moment full of opportunities, but rather like these roses, you know, will that blossom? And punk did blossom very, very quickly. I think it was just something about feeling worthless a lot of the time. You know, we were all unemployable, totally unemployable. Britain was in crisis. The refuse men were on strike. There was rubbish all over. You know, we were walking through that, which was worthless. And that cover the buzzcocks. You must tell me about that single. Well, even the name Buzz Cox, I mean, for a start, even thinking about that, when that came out, you know, what does this mean, Buzz Cox?

8:37And then the title of the single? Orgasm Addict, which at the time was outrageous. I mean, even now, there's a slight hesitation, but this track was recorded and I was working with Malcolm Garrett, the designer. and we decided to have one photo montage I'd made. Again, very minimal intervention, just one woman's body, a very avant-garde body that was not a body typical of those times. It's really surprising, folks, what you can do with a found page, two lips and an iron to create this beautiful cyborg monster. And just looping back to punk, I think for a very short period, There was no gap between the audience and the stage.

9:21Anybody could walk up from the audience and pick up a drumstick, and you'd never played the drums before, but you would just hit the drums. Or somebody else would walk up and grab a microphone and sing. So it didn't last long, but for that very, very, very, very early week's days, anybody could go on stage. So I thought, I too will go on stage, and I will take a microphone. I'd never sung before, but I will make noise. I'll put on a meat dress. Exactly. Now that we're here, we can't unsee this or unhear this moment. But of course, you were with Ludus, quite a cause célèbre. Take us back to the Hacienda in Manchester, 1982.

10:05Dare I say 30 years before Lady Gaga came on stage at the NTV VMAs. and maybe tell us what it was that drove you to a special moment. I have a friend whose mother has a restaurant, and I just said, just bring me any meat that is not, you know, is wasted, does not even go into, you know, cannot be recycled. So we were sewing all this kind of meat on, this kind of bodice and skirts and things like that. And really, now especially, you'd be forgiven for thinking there weren't any women in Manchester at that point making music. I mean, it's such a white man's story. So I'm really glad that for one night I went in there.

10:47In your meat dress. In my meat dress, like literally staining, leaving stains on the stains. Blood trailing behind you. Blood screaming. What was the song? What was the message? What were you orally envisioning? I mean, it was just that, I mean, I think towards the end, it was just like the kind of screams were coming in. And the delight, I think when you watch the footage, But you can see that delight because I suddenly realized there's a power here. And it did feel as if something larger than I was happening. I was a container. I was a mouthpiece. But it felt like maybe some ancient, I don't know, you know, Romans.

11:24Romans wandering through. Manchester left us some kind of shrine there. The micro dancers, they possessed. The duende. There was a possession. But it was beautiful. It felt like, wow. because as I revealed, you know, opened my meat dress and there was a sex aid, I remember the whole audience stepping back as one. So as I'm watching that in real time, there was that sense of, as we said, the glamour, the grammar, really at work that night, really at work. Not long after that, I actually stopped performing. It just felt like, where can you go after you've done that? It felt like after that Hacienda gig, we did stay together, but I'd had that taste of something.

12:08It's like this beautiful fruit. And I was always pining for that beautiful, because I'd had that taste. And maybe now I get it through the works I make. I want to actually make you blush, but you talked about the cutting, the slicing, and Marina Warner actually called your work Mischievous Disruptions. She said, Linda's scalpel is a slingshot like David's, a bow drill like Michelangelo's. How do you respond to that? Well, of course, you know, blush, blush. And I'd also like to say that Marina's work over the decades has really sustained me. It has inspired me. It affects my practice. It's interesting.

12:54she mentions Michelangelo and David. And it makes me think of this male-dominated sphere of Richard Hamilton, Picasso, John Stesiker here in the UK. Were you very conscious that you were stepping into this zone? Yeah, very, very conscious. And also, that's also why for a long time I didn't have a surname. And people would go crazy that, what's your surname? Because I didn't want to be, to be as fluid as possible. I overheard conversations of people saying, oh, Linda, he's really good. I love Linda's work. He does really strong work. You must have loved that. Androgyny. I adore it. I think within fairy stories, thinking about Marina Warner, you have more agency if you can at will become visible or invisible.

13:42Losing my Irish surname just really granted me a whole new chapter in my life. But Marina Warner and that detailing of fairy stories. I think we're all living a fairy stories of sorts. And it's just good to be able to recognize which fairy story it is you are living. This is a perfect moment for me to ask about the Pendle Witch Trials. As we talk about fairies, I have to ask you where you're living and what proximity to a particular castle means to you and your practice. I have two studios. I have one studio in the northwest of England, which is minutes away from a medieval castle. And this castle is very, very important because there in 1612, witch trials happened there.

14:30We know a lot about this one specific witch trial because a year later, one of the clerks who had been at that trial wrote the history of that. We don't know how accurate it is, but he wrote the history of the Pendle witch trials. It became a huge bestseller. So thanks to him, we do know what each woman and man was being accused of. We know the defence. Well, they had little defence. As I drive past that extraordinary castle, and I think of the horrors, not just with the witch trials, you know, over the centuries, it's a really sobering reminder of so much that it almost makes me kind of just pause for a minute and think about the work I want to make.

15:13Just that depth of the work, to always be fighting against misogyny from, you know, whether it's working in the past, but that knowledge, just walking past that castle every day, it's very grounding, very grounding. I guess for the Americans, it's the equivalent of the Salem trials. Absolutely, absolutely. But I think about that tension in your work between the glamour and the other, and it makes me think of Edmund Burke and that idea that there's no beauty without terror. So I'd love to touch on that idea about cutting up such glamorous women. How have beauty standards changed over time? And how is your studio now organized to ensure that in the digital age you can still find that serendipity, that delight, that surprise, and that tension which has so defined your work over time?

16:01Something for me, the beauty of the clean cut. So making those first photomontages, extraordinary moments, because again, the culture was ready. But now, working now, we live in a photomontage, you know, we look on social media and there's so many images rushing towards us all at once. So almost our culture is one huge photomontage. We can, you know, change our opinions through all the various kind of filters, etc. And then I love how all those years later, you made a deep fake of your 16-year-old self for the Hayward. Yes. So there's a red thread there. That's it, because I bought, around that time, all those extraordinary countercultural magazines were coming out.

16:42I went to a pop festival that rained all the time somewhere in the north and bought Oz. But it was Jomaine Greer's edit of Oz. And inside Oz, there was a Victorian dictionary that had over a thousand terms slang for the female sexual organs. and I have I mean I've titled so many works by taking name taking all those names some are very very poetic like Daisy Hole Gentleman's Pleasure Garden I mean they're really beautiful Jason Rhodes has a beautiful neon work before he passed that you've probably seen yes exactly that is an extension of that yes really so I feel so many times in my life whether it's a you know a small pop festival and finding the right magazine I feel I think luck plays a big part Well, there was still a lot of excitement and a lot of celebration.

17:35And you talk about this vulnerability and emotion of women. Of course, there have been women writers that have written about that experience. I think of Jermaine Greer. I think about Kate Millett. It seemed to have had a very important influence on your oeuvre and your life. Very much so. Interestingly, when we think of Jermaine Greer as a name within Britain, we recognize immediately. I first came across Jermaine Greer because in the northwest of England, we had a satirical half-hour program every Wednesday at half past six. And I'd watch it because we'd all sit around the television, the one tiny television.

18:10It turns out that Jermaine Greer was in the satirical program. And I'd never, A, I'd never seen satire before on mainstream television. And I'd never seen a woman like Greer before who was like so snappy with his kind of really quick answers, very witty. And I'm thinking, oh, whatever she, again, it was that use of language, interviewing window cleaners and asking the men what saucy scenes they'd seen of their cleaning windows. And then about a year later, I was in a bookshop and I saw this extraordinary cover and her name. And I was thinking, oh, it's the comedian that I used to watch on television.

18:46I will get the book, The Female Eunuch. And of course, that book. And again, it's the grammar, her use of grammar and how glamorous that was. And I think all the synapses in my brain, I mean, then they just went crazy. My brain was exploding. I'd have a dictionary in one hand and the book in the other. And I'd have to look up because her language is so advanced. So I owe her a debt. I think her and others, I owe her a debt. literally my brain was rewired. So I think it's important that my generation, yeah, we, yeah, we turn up. It's as simple as that. I think now we, we turn up. What's making you feel lucky at the moment?

19:28Oh, well, going to, going to Tokyo to be honest. How about your collaborators? Which collaborators are you most excited about? What's making you feel lucky in terms of the company you keep? The company I keep, let me think. Although it has been quite, it has been quite sultry recently, just trying to keep up, you know, there is so much happening. So often the studio does become quite monastic, like nobody is allowed in there. Not even Miguel Aziz. Miguel Aziz is invited in. Can you tell us who Miguel Aziz is? Of course I could. So as I said, you know, if you're born in Liverpool, you are born into football.

20:04And I've always watched football all my life. And there's a certain, you know, most footballers have a certain look. Now more and more footballers are really investing in extraordinary luxury products. But I noticed Miguel Aziz because he joined the local football team. And immediately, you know, you always want to know, where's this player come from? What are they doing? And I found out he'd been at Arsenal since age five. He was there until age 20. And around age 22, Miguel really begins to really express himself through dress. So, for example, one of his idols was Prince. So Miguel will often, you know, just walk, turn up in, you know, great fake fair or whatever with, you know, Cuban heel boots.

20:53And I think the Arsenal are a little uncomfortable with that. And, you know. They really could use him last weekend, dare I say. In Budapest. Exactly. In the final round. Yes, I know. I know. I was full of glee. Anyway, so then I got in touch with Miguel. I just said, I'm an artist. Can I meet you? He's 23 years old. And he said, yeah. And he came to my studio one night and because he was in recovery, he said, do you mind if I have my infrared light on? And of course, I was really curious. And I said, put it on. So then we turned the lights off. So my first meeting with Miguel, it was in this kind of blood, my studio, this blood red space suddenly.

21:32And we were talking a lot. And I said, can I photograph you? And he was like, yeah. Because he's like every sports person, male, female, you know, you know your body is extraordinary. I mean, you know that. So for him to be photographed, he was just a natural. I had to give him the most minimal direction. I really let him lead. I'm aware of that age difference, et cetera. So I wanted him to really feel in control. But occasionally I might say, just lift your chin a tiny bit. So for me, working with Miguel was extraordinary and funny. and he comes to my studio. We flood it with red light. We have a wonderful time.

22:12But then I had to photomontage them. And that was so difficult. They have all these boxes in my studio which say, for example, sports cars, lipsticks. But sometimes there'll be an octopus, you've mentioned. Oh, an octopus. There'll be something quite random. But I'd look at all the boxes thinking, they won't gel with Miguel. And I had quite a tight deadline and I was thinking it was for a show with Stuart Shave and I was getting quite panicky thinking, what can I pair him with? And I suddenly found a book of Raphael paintings and immediately it was like, of course, of course, of course. You know, it's Miguel and it's Raphael.

22:51This perfect partnering. And also the paintings of Raphael that I cut up were made when he was also in his early 20s. So I was so delighted to solve that jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes photomontage is like a jigsaw puzzle, but you've lost the box with the image on it. So you're trying to think what should go where. I wonder how beautiful that the jigsaw also takes you from the female body of the Buzzcocks in 1977 to the athletic male body of Miguel in this era. Is there a difference? Are you interested in more male collaborators, protagonists, other athletes that you're particularly keen to work with who might be listening to this podcast.

23:33Should we manifest? Should we manifest? I mean, obviously, I want to continue working with Miguel. I feel like we've almost only just started because the eroticized male body is still not around. Of course, within gay cultures, queer cultures, but what we're doing, I can't even quite, you know, give it a title yet, which is quite interesting. So I'm going to do a lot more work with Miguel, a lot more. And I don't know yet because I'm so in, I think there's something about him as an individual as well. There's something about him as an individual, which is really intriguing and there's a lot more to be discovered.

24:11I heard Tyson Fury might be someone on the horizon. So maybe another day we'll get on to boxing. We'll go see Raphael at the Met together. And Paris Fury, his wife Paris Fury, and there's seven children. Fantastic. So again, you know, you can be, I don't know, name any supermarket locally, and suddenly you will sense this kind of, this static, and something's changing the static, and there will be Tyson Fury or Paris Fury. and the gypsy community where I live, they, talking about glamour, wow. I mean, you know, they really do it night and day, especially the young 14, 15, 16, every age, 80 year olds.

24:49I mean, the gypsy community, they really inspire me. Well, Indra Sterling, you really, really inspire me. I'm so thrilled that you are getting your flowers so deservedly. You are here beautifully manifesting the most punk thing that you can honour today. which is nature. Yes, it is. It's the most good thing, isn't it? It really is. Linda, you're a most magnificent role model, and I would love to ask you your advice to a young artist, and then also to hear what is inspiring you to make the future work right now. I think for young artists, of course, it is tricky. It is tricky. It was tricky for my generation because I was the first person in my family to have education beyond the age of 14.

25:37Everybody else before me had left school at age 14. So my family watched with great interest. You know, when I stayed on to 16, I stayed at school at 18. Then I go off to art school. I was the first one. So in the family, I was like the monkey being sent out into space. And everybody was watching me very, very closely. And there was no guidance. Class comes into it now, even, I think, with the arts. And there are wonderful people within the art world who are working far more now with the working class as well as every other class. In some ways, it's an easy time to be an artist, but it's not an easy time if you want to be a famous artist.

26:13I think a lot of us during punk, we never even thought of anything of the art world. The art world then seemed quite boring. It seemed not a place it wants to go to. So I think maybe if you, when you're young, you just have to enjoy that discipline for what it is. And it is a discipline. It's turning up to the easel or turning up in the etching. sweet or turning up with the charcoal you know it is a discipline so I think just to really push yourself and don't think about success at an early age art making can be very sensual and you're young and you're out in the world it's like you know just go dancing get out as well as making the it's not just art making it's making it's making your life at the same time an interesting life so advice it's difficult isn't it it's difficult and I'm so happy that so many there are some the art schools are you know virgin ink and that people want to do it I think whatever you're doing just go in deep just stay off the surface just go in deep you know I always carry wherever I go almost to an encyclopedia of etymology I've always wanted to know the the tap roots of a word like glamour like grammar like punk it's like get down to the to the tap root of what it is you're researching.

27:27I mean, you brought a book to our conversation. Can we finish off by hearing what you are going deep on right now? So, yeah, of course, I always carried books. And I grew up in a home with very little books. And my parents, again, were quite astonished at the amount of books I collected. So this is Michael Bracewell's new book. It's a novella. It's called The Smiths. So it was quite interesting reading this yesterday on the train and thinking, oh, even this is interwoven and interlinked. The witches are watching. And we've gone from the Smiths of Manchester in the 1980s to Bracewell Smith. Thank you so much for showing up with such brilliance and style.

28:08Thank you, Jen. Thank you so much. Thank you.