10/04/15
Interview: Penny Slinger
History is Now: 7 Artists Take on Britain
Hayward Gallery
10 February – 26
April 2015
Penny Slinger (b1947,
London) was a lively and prominent figure on the 70s London arts scene. She
studied at Chelsea School of Art, where she wrote her thesis on Max Ernst, and,
after graduating in 1969, was offered a place at the Royal College of Art. That
summer, however, she met and fell in love with a young film-maker called Peter Whitehead.
They decided to go off and make work together, including the 1969 film Lilford
Hall, currently on show at the Hayward Gallery (History
is Now, 10 February – 26 April 2015). After the breakdown of their
relationship and a dark period of self-examination, questioning both who she
was and where she fitted in to the contemporary art world, Slinger discovered
tantric art. Seeking a spiritual guide, she met Nik Douglas, and, with him,
moved first to New York and then, in 1979, to the Caribbean.
She returned to the US in 1994, but Slinger’s
legacy in the UK was all but lost until 2009, when she reappeared in an
exhibition, Angels
of Anarchy, at the Manchester Art Gallery. Since then, she has had several
exhibitions around the country and is firmly re-establishing her place in
British art history.
To read this interview, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/penny-slinger-interview-being-different-is-just-who-you-are-tantra-nik-douglas