Picture for event

Penny Slinger: Out of the Shadows

with director Q&A

Richard Kovitch, 2017, UK, 94 mins, cert. 18 (CTBA)

-
Thu 5 April 2018 // 20:00

Tickets: £6 (full), £5 (concessions)

We’re absolutely thrilled to be bringing this mind-blowing documentary to the Cube - the incredible, untold story of the British artist Penny Slinger and the traumatic events that led to the creation of her masterpiece, the 1977 photo-romance, ‘An Exorcism’. We are also even happier to welcome director Richard Kovich to introduce the film and answer questions afterwards.

Coming-of-age against a back drop of post-war austerity and the explosion of colour that characterised the 1960s counter-culture in London, Slinger embraced her generation’s quest for personal freedom and sexual liberation and channelled these desires into her ground-breaking collages and sculptures - resuscitating Surrealism, and instilling it with a radical, feminine perspective. So powerful was her vision that 45 years later her work is still influencing contemporary artists.

Richard Kovitch’s film documents Slinger’s life during this intense period of creativity and considers the relevance of her work to the current generation. We talk to her key collaborators from the period, including the radical filmmakers Peter Whitehead and Jack Bond, and consider her relationship with the acclaimed, feminist playwright Jane Arden, and the controversial film they worked on together, ‘The Other Side Of The Underneath’ (1972).  The respected critic Michael Bracewell and the Turner Prize nominated artists Jane and Louise Wilson help us understand her relationship with Surrealism and her confidantes Max Ernst and Sir Roland Penrose. 

This is a portrait of an artist across time that presents fresh experiences of the 1960s counter-culture, the role of women in post-war art and the personal risks an artist must take to emancipate their ideas. All this work broke new ground; in some instances it broke its creators. Not everyone made it out alive.

Doors open 30 minutes before film start time.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office.