Catalogue Entry
Professional Practices in Visual Culture
Sana Shaban
April 14th 2015
Illustration No.: T12500
Title: ‘Untitled’
Artist: Linder, (Born 1954)
Date: 1976
Country of Origin: London
Medium: Printed papers on paper
Dimensions: 136mm x 210mm
Owner: Tate
Exhibitions: Living Room: Works from the Tate Collection
This work is from a group of Untitled collages, it features a model wearing a one piece white lace lingerie garment standing in an unnatural pose in a bedroom, subverting passive women on display. Her body curves in an unnatural way to appear more flattering with her left arm bent so her hand is resting uncomfortably on her hip and upper thigh whilst her right arm is stretched upwards to accentuate her breasts. Collaged onto the models right arm is a vacuum cleaner angled towards the brown-carpeted ceiling that has been pasted in. Linder collaged an image of an electric hoover over the model’s right forearm, which is raised above her head. On the ceiling one can see that an image of a textured brown carpet has been pasted in, changing the models motionless passive pose into an active potential for motion. Upon the hoovers sweeper Linder attached a pair of outsized eyes and a big smiling mouth allowing it to appear as a substitute head. Behind the model is a vanity chest where instead of a mirror stands a giant camera angled as though it is filming her from behind. Accordingly, her eyes seem to be looking at the camera. Coming out of the bed behind the model is a portable radio transistor with its aerial peeking out from under the fitted cupboards that frame the bed.
The work addresses challenging beauty standards and representations of women and femininity, stereotyping women as housewives or the objects of male desire. The work was produced for women to unravel the satirized notion of the male gaze and the cultural expectations of women including the treatment of the female body as a...