Bridget O'Gorman
The Skin Reads the Room
Wednesday 28 May, 7 – 8.30pm
Thursday 29 May, 1 – 2.30pm
The Skin Reads the Room is an in-progress lecture-performance and sound-scape by artist Bridget O’Gorman. Thinking through ideas around mobility, access and the institution from a feminist, crip perspective – the artist recounts a visit to an exhibition of works by Louise Bourgeois at The Douglas Hyde in 1996.
The performance considers Bourgeois’ tendency to throw her works to the ground in a rage [with the aim of breaking it] as a sculptural act – or the embodiment of claiming space. The idea of cracking, brokenness or debility as a way of reading the world rubs up against the notion that ‘Libraries, public lectures and art galleries’ (1) were originally conceived of as a vehicle for policing public movement and behaviour.
Drawing from semi-autobiographical, architectural and sculptural narratives the piece converses with both the negative and positive spaces of the gallery, to question for whom does this function?
(1) Bennett, T. The Birth of the Museum, 1995
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