Entering Linder: Danger Came Smiling, the retrospective of the Liverpool-born artist now open at London’s Hayward Gallery, you are stared down by Linder herself. In a wall-height photographic portrait, the artist appears dressed in pearls and gagged by cellophane, contradictions which her eyes, lined and mascara’d, dare you to understand.

It is a fitting introduction to the multidisciplinary artist, who, now aged 70, has never been a retiring figure. Real-name Linda Sterling, she has had a 50-year career working across music, film, textiles, fashion and performance. Her work is frequently confronting, such as a 1982 performance at the Haçienda in Manchester with her band Ludus where she wore a dress made of meat – long before Gaga, and paired with a large black dildo. But she is best known for her photomontages made with magazine imagery, where decisive cuts, made with a surgical scalpel, unsettlingly skewer the status quo.

Those unfamiliar with Linder’s name may have seen her most famous work for the cover of Buzzcocks’ 1977 debut single Orgasm Addict, designed by Malcolm Garrett. It features an oiled-up female torso, domestic iron for a head, with two smiling, lipsticked mouths in place of nipples (“Look into my iron and tell me you want me,” they challenge). This work came early in her career; moving to Manchester to study graphic design, Linder soon discovered punk, attending the Sex Pistols’ infamous 1976 show at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall.