I’d Rather Go Blind

Saturday 26 November, 7pm
Modern Art Oxford



This work was devised for the upper gallery of the Museum of Modern Art. It was hung as a photographic exhibition but, during the performance, the images were literally washed away, becoming more and more painterly and finally leaving merely a frame around an emptiness. 

I asked the musician Chris Gladwin to work on a recorded version of the song I’d Rather Go Blind sung by Etta James in a similarly disintegrating way; a laundered, scrubbed song, forming its own whirls and emptiness. 

As I washed the photographs, I improvised with the scoured voice of Etta James. 

I’d Rather Go Blind was part of SOLO curated by Brian Catling.