STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head, Whitechapel Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head, Whitechapel Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head,
Whitechapel Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head,
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head,
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head,
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head,
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head,
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
STUART BRISLEY, Legs, 2000, Live in the Head,
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London

Performance duration: 5 hours a day for 2 weeks

Legs was conceived as a performative work discoursing on the question of identity regarding two sculptures of legs the focus of the work. The question concerned whether one or either of both legs were those of Louise Bourgeois. Aspects of Bourgeois’ own poetic interpretation of her early life were brought into the discourse. However the focus of the work concerned the identity of the legs. Were they those of Louise B.? Or of the Soviet worker hero of the 1930s Stakhanov, or were they taken from a Chinese action man doll?

The Museum of Ordure eventually grew out of this discourse as did the book, Beyond Reason-Ordure, published by Bookworks in 2003. The question of Louise Bourgeois’ legs is one of the central issues of the text. The recent paintings I have made and continue to do are all made within the aegis of the Museum of Ordure.