Join us for an illustrated talk as part of the Basic Talks programme.
Francis Halsall and Mark O’Gorman will participate in a basic conversation.
A basic conversation can not be scripted or planned in advance.
A basic conversation develops naturally as the participants react to each other’s words, gestures, and energy.
A basic conversation prompts the participant to adjust their tone, topic, and language in response to their conversational partner.
A basic conversation often involves creativity and flexibility.
A basic conversation allows humor, narrative, and metaphor to appear spontaneously in real-time.
A basic conversation does not involve performative monologues.
A basic conversation is an improvised act.
Mark O’Gorman is the inaugural curator and producer of visual art at The Complex, a multi-disciplinary arts centre in Dublin’s north inner city, since 2018. The exhibition programme focuses on commissioning site-specific work with a prolonged developmental process and conversational approach with artists, who are carefully brought together in relation to one another.
Mark has presented exhibitions and events at The Complex featuring artists including Jeremy Deller, Vivienne Dick, Aleana Egan, Jaki Irvine, Sean Lynch, Dennis McNulty, and Locky Morris. He co-curated Fly Floor in 2023 with Niamh O’Malley in partnership with the Ireland tour of Ireland at Venice at The Complex.
He consistently guest lectures at the National College of Art & Design, Technological University Dublin, and the Institute of Art, Design and Technology. His writing has appeared in Paper Visual Art and The Visual Artists’ News Sheet.
Francis Halsall is a lecturer in Visual Culture at National College of Art and Design, Dublin where he is co-director of the Master Program: Art in the Contemporary World. He works on ideas of systems and their cultural and philosophical significance.
His recently published book Contemporary Art, Systems and the Aesthetics of Dispersion (Routledge, 2025) just came out in paperback.
Free, book or come on the day subject to availability.
Basic Talks is a series of talks with leading contemporary practitioners, taking place at the Hugh Lane Gallery. Curated by Basic Space in partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, BASIC TALKS is a platform for lectures, workshops, presentations, and performances. Speakers include artists, curators, writers, and critics who will generate discourse on producing, framing and exhibiting art. BASIC TALKS is a collaboration between Basic Space and the Hugh Lane Gallery, exploring alternatives in the dissemination of contemporary art and its discourses.
