Blood from a Stone

2009

Kate Gilmore sets up scenarios in which she performs tasks that test her physical endurance, such as breaking out of confining spaces, scaling high walls, or moving heavy objects. These feats are at once potentially dangerous and seemingly meaningless, yet the artist enacts them repeatedly with unwavering determination and focus. Gilmore originally executed and recorded Blood from a Stone in the Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art before the work appeared in the 2009–10 exhibition Reflections on the Electric Mirror: New Feminist Video.