An iconic feminist artist dives seamlessly through highlights of the last 50 years, as Linder: Danger Came Smiling, settles in with indisputable style at Inverleith House.
Spilling out from the gallery to the manicured landscape of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, this first Scottish retrospective looks beyond traditional notions around gender and sexuality and even addresses Linder’s fascination with the language of plants. It runs daily from May 23 to October 19, 2025.
Edgy and playful, occasionally disturbing, Linder: Danger Came Smiling embodies key moments in a beautifully satirical catalogue of works dating back to the rising punk culture of the ‘70s. Tracing defining moments in the artistic life of Linder, from Orgasm Addict, the celebrated Buzzcocks album cover, it takes us on a journey through popular culture to the point of arrival at Inverleith: not only her first Scottish retrospective, but the first botanic garden and domestic setting for an exhibition.
A Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition from Southbank Centre, London, Linder: Danger Came Smiling has been developing behind the scenes in Edinburgh as a particularly fruitful meeting of minds.
The Garden’s Projects Producer Amy Porteous explained: “This is an important exhibition and an exciting partnership. Linder’s artworks engage their audiences in vibrant and powerful snapshots of a male-oriented and consumer-centric culture. They provoke reflection on where we are as a society: the beauty, flaws and strengths inside and around us.
“As a botanic garden, a research institute invested in establishing a more secure future for nature’s habitats, we continually need to consider what we do, how we do it and why. We don’t have a lot of time. With almost half of all known plant species believed to be at risk of extinction, botanic gardens are crucial in provoking difficult conversations and attracting audiences who care about making changes for the better. We need to consider our place in this world.”
From the starting point of her days as a student in Manchester, to new work in digital montages, the exhibition represents the breadth of Linder’s artistic output. Visitors will be introduced to photographs, photomontages, print, video and, also, a very special openair performance.
Officially opening Edinburgh Art Festival 2025, from the Garden’s Oak Lawn on August 7, the performance, A kind of glamour about me, is created by Linder in collaboration with choreographer Holly Blakey, composer Maxwell Sterling and fashion designer Ashish Gupta. It will follow the premiere at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, on June 14. Embodying the transcendent power of the creative arts on personal identity and social mobility, A kind of glamour about me nods to the writings of Walter Scott, the A-Lister of historical blockbusters*.
On this notable Scottish summer, Linder commented: “I’m thrilled to share half a century of works with the visitors to Inverleith House. So many of my photomontages feature floral motifs which caress and sometimes subsume the human body. At Inverleith House, these coded flowers will be decoded by so many visitors in new and telling ways. I look forward to these conversations.
“Inverleith House was once a home, at a time when the roles of men and women were very clearly demarcated. I’ve always been intrigued about what goes on behind closed doors. Is the home a safe space, a refuge, or does danger lurk there? My work looks at the home as a haven, but also the home as a claustrophobic space burdened with the outdated expectations of its inhabitants.
“At a moment in time when safe spaces become more and more important, this show at Inverleith House offers visitors a temporary sanctuary in which to reflect upon our place within homes and gardens in new ways.”
Running until Sunday, October 19, Linder: Danger Came Smiling is recommended for audiences aged 16 years and over. Depictions of nudity and images of a sexual nature are included in this exhibition. Open daily 10.30am – 4.30pm, free entry.
ENDS
For more information, images or interviews, please contact Shauna Hay shay@rbge.org.uk on 07824 529 028, or contact Bianca Noltie bnoltie@rbge.org.uk
EDITOR’S NOTES
Hayward Gallery Touring is the UK’s largest and longest-standing not for profit organisation producing exhibitions of modern and contemporary art that tour to galleries, museums and other publicly funded venues throughout Britain. Funded by Arts Council England and based at Southbank Centre, London, Hayward Gallery Touring collaborates with independent curators, artists, writers and galleries to create ambitious exhibitions that are beyond the scope of a single institution. Ranging in scale from the British Art Show – the largest exhibition of contemporary art produced in the UK – to smaller monographic shows, our imaginative exhibitions are seen by up to half a million people in over 40 cities and towns each year.
Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) is the UK’s largest annual festival of visual art. Founded in 2004, we cultivate connections between artists, collaborators and communities to develop contemporary visual art projects in Edinburgh. In August, we present the UK’s largest annual visual art festival that is deeply rooted in the city and Scotland, with a global dialogue and connection. We amplify intersectional voices and perspectives.
The festival is the moment once a year where we make public and bring together in a live moment all of the relationships and support structures that we embody. Since 2004, we have presented 20 editions, working with an average of 35 partner galleries and venues every year. We have programmed 785 events, in addition to the hundreds of other events presented by our partners. Since 2011, we have welcomed a total of over 3 million visitors to EAF.
For EAF media enquiries: Studio Nicola Jeffs | nj@nicolajeffs.com Siobhan Scott | ss@nicolajeffs.com 07794694754
* There is a kind of glamour about me
Walter Scott noted in his diary:
“August 12. -- Wrote a little in the morning; then Duty and I have settled that this is to be a kind of holiday, providing the volume be finished to-morrow. I went to breakfast at Chiefswood, and after that affair was happily transacted, I wended me merrily to the Black Cock Stripe, and there caused Tom Purdie and John Swanston cut out a quantity of firs. Got home about two o'clock, and set to correct a set of proofs. James Ballantyne presages well of this work, but is afraid of inaccuracies -- so am I -- but things must be as they may. There is a kind of glamour about me, which sometimes makes me read dates, etc., in the proof-sheets, not as they actually do stand, but as they ought to stand. I wonder if a pill of holy trefoil would dispel this fascination”
A kind of glamour about me opens at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, on June 14. That performance will also include the unveiling of a new modular tapestry work by Linder, woven by expert weavers at the world-renowned West Dean Tapestry Studio,
Mount Stuart is an extraordinary Neo-Gothic mansion on the Island of Bute. Since 2001, this unorthodox building has provided both the inspiration and location for an acclaimed Contemporary Visual Arts Programme. The Programme enables the Trust to promote and facilitate interest in the contemporary visual arts and bring exhibitions of international standard to Bute and Argyll. Each exhibition is complemented by a programme of events, publications and educational activities. Exhibiting artists have included Martin Boyce, Ilana Halperin, Sekai Machache, Monster Chetwynd, Martin Boyce, Abbas Akhavan and Christine Borland. Mount Stuart’s Contemporary Visual Arts Programme is supported by Creative Scotland
@mount_stuart_visual_arts
Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, is a unique contemporary art gallery, embedded in the world of plants. Designed by David Henderson in1773, for Sir James Rocheid (1715-1787) as his family home and centrepiece of his estate, it was acquired by the Garden in 1877, and was the official home of Regius Keepers until 1960, when it was transformed into the inaugural Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Since 1986, Inverleith House has been the Garden’s own centre of art. Growing audiences year on year since the organisation’s 350th anniversary in 2020, it is in a unique position to explore, explain and celebrate the historic and contemporary relationships between art and science.
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a leading international research organisation delivering knowledge, education, and plant conservation action around the world. In Scotland, its four Gardens at Edinburgh, Benmore, Dawyck and Logan attract more than a million visitors each year. It operates as a Non-Departmental Public Body established under the National Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985, principally funded by the Scottish Government. It is also a registered charity, managed by a Board of Trustees appointed by Ministers. Its mission is “To explore, conserve and explain the world of plants.”