Katrina Palmer: The Touch Report at the National Gallery
Katrina Palmer in the National Gallery, 2023 © The National Gallery, London
The National Gallery Artist in Residence is a collaboration with the Contemporary Art Society
Katrina Palmer, the National Gallery Artist in Residence 2024, presents her latest work ‘The Touch Report’ in a room where the paintings are no longer visible.
Palmer invites you to read her new book ‘The Touch Report’ and to reconsider the National Gallery’s pictures through the artist’s words that describe them. Sit and be engrossed by copies of the book in a specially constructed reading room alongside an enigmatic sealed bookcase and a little-known sculpture from the National Gallery’s stores.
Named after the Gallery’s record of when artworks on public display are touched, the book explores the fragile material conditions and perceived power of historical paintings, while explicitly addressing their violent imagery.
In the book, an artist makes an audit of the paintings in the gallery by describing only the violence, subjugation and physical tension in the images.
Through unadorned descriptions in her work, Palmer explores the contrasting ideas of civilisation and violence in historic paintings and draws on the power of words over image. ‘The Touch Report’ invites you to contemplate the Gallery’s paintings and their stories in a new way.
