Parker is best known for large-scale installations such as Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991) – first shown at the Chisenhale Gallery in Bow, East London[10] – for which she had a garden shed blown up by the British Army and suspended the fragments as if suspending the explosion process in time. In the centre was a light which cast the shadows of the wood dramatically on the walls of the room.[11] This inspired an orchestral composition of the same name by Joo Yeon Sir.
In contrast, in 1997 at the Turner Prize exhibition, Parker exhibited Mass (Colder Darker Matter) (1997), suspending the charred remains of a church that had been struck by lightning in Texas.[12] Eight years later, Parker made a companion piece "Anti-Mass" (2005), using charcoal from a black congregation church in Kentucky, which had been destroyed by arson. Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson) (1999) is another example of Parker's suspended sculptures, featuring charred remains of an actual case of suspected arson.[7]
The Maybe (1995) at the Serpentine Gallery, London, was a performance piece conceived by Tilda Swinton, who lay, apparently asleep, inside a vitrine. She asked Parker to collaborate with her on the project, and to create an installation in which she could sleep.[13][14][15] Swinton's original idea was to lie in state as Snow White in a glass coffin, but through the collaboration with Parker the idea evolved into her appearing as herself and not as an actor posing as a fictional character.[13] Parker filled the Serpentine with glass cases containing relics that belonged to famous historical figures, such as the pillow and blanket from Freud's couch, Mrs. Simpson's ice skates, Charles Dickens' quill pen and Queen Victoria's stocking.[13][14] A version of the piece was later re-performed in Rome (1996) and then MoMA, New York (2013) without Parker's involvement.[16]
Avoided Object is an ongoing series of smaller works which have been developed in liaison with various institutions, including the Royal Armouries, British Police Forces, Colt Firearms and Madame Tussauds.
Parker has made other interventions involving historical artworks. In 1998 in her solo show at the Serpentine Gallery she exhibited the backs of Turner paintings (Room for Margins)[17] as works in their own right, she wrapped Rodin's The Kiss sculpture in Tate Britain with a mile of string (2003)[18] as her contribution to the 2003 Tate Triennial Days Like These at Tate Britain. The intervention was titled The Distance (A Kiss With String Attached). She re-staged this piece as part of her mid-career retrospective at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, in 2015 and at Tate Britain in 2022.
Subconscious of a Monument (2005) is composed of fragments of dry soil, which are suspended on wires from the gallery ceiling. These lumps are the now-desiccated clay which was removed from beneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa in order to prevent its collapse.[19]
Embryo Firearms, 1995. Colt 45 guns in the earliest stage of production
These "avoided" objects have often had their identities transformed by being burned, shot, squashed, stretched, drawn, exploded, cut, or simply dropped off cliffs. Cartoon deaths have long held a fascination for Parker: "Tom being run over by a steamroller or Jerry riddled with bullet holes. Sometimes the object's demise has been orchestrated, or it may have occurred accidentally or by natural causes. According to Parker:
They might be 'preempted' objects that have not yet achieved a fully formed identity, having been plucked prematurely from the production line like Embryo Firearms 1995. They may not even be classified as objects: things like cracks, creases, shadows, dust or dirt The Negative of Whispers 1997: Earplugs made with fluff gathered in the Whispering Gallery, St Paul's Cathedral). Or they might be those territories you want to avoid psychologically, such as the backs, underbellies or tarnished surfaces of things."[20]
Another example of this work is Pornographic Drawings (1997), using ink made by the artist who used solvent to dissolve (pornographic) video tape, confiscated by HM Customs and Excise.[21]
I resurrect things that have been killed off... My work is all about the potential of materials — even when it looks like they've lost all possibilities.[21]
In 2009, for the opening of Jupiter Artland, a sculpture park near Edinburgh, Parker created a firework display titled Nocturne: A Moon Landing containing a lunar meteorite. Therefore, the moon "landed on Jupiter". The following year Parker made Landscape with Gun and Tree for Jupiter Artland, a nine-metre-tall cast iron and Corten steel shotgun leaning against a tree. It was inspired by the painting Mr and Mrs Andrews by Thomas Gainsborough, where Mr Andrews poses with a gun slung over his arm. The shotgun used in the piece is a facsimile of the one owned by Robert Wilson, one of the founders of Jupiter Artland.
Folkestone Harbour Mermaid
For the Folkestone Triennial in 2011, Parker created The Folkestone Mermaid, her version of one of the popular tourist attractions in Copenhagen, TheLittle Mermaid. Through a process of open submission, Parker chose Georgina Baker, 38 year old mother of two, Folkestone born and bred. Unlike the idealised Copenhagen version, this is a life-size, life-cast sculpture, celebrating womankind.[22][23]
In 2016 Parker became the first female artist to be commissioned to create a new work for the Roof Garden of the Met in New York. Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)[26] is a scaled-down replica of the house from the 1960 Hitchcock film “Psycho” and was constructed using a salvaged red barn.
Parker continued her work as a curator for the Found exhibition[27] for The Foundling Museum, which incorporated sixty-eight artists from an array of creative disciplines, as well as contributing her own piece, A Little Drop of Gin. This limited-edition print, nicknamed 'mother's ruin', was a photogravure using a 1750s gin glass and droppings of gin. Parker was named Artist of the Year in the 2016 Apollo Awards for her involvement and contributions in the art world.
Parker appeared in the BBC Four television series What Do Artists Do All Day?, a BBC Scotland production, first broadcast in 2013. In the programme she talks about her life and work.[28] In May 2015, Parker was included in the Brilliant Ideas series broadcast by Bloomberg TV in which she reveals her inspirations and discusses some of her best-loved works.[29] In summer 2016, BBC One broadcast "Danger! Cornelia Parker" as part of the TV series Imagine.[30] In autumn 2016 she was included in Gaga for Dada, a programme to mark the 100th anniversary of Dada, presented by Vic Reeves.[31] She also contributed to the BBC Four production Bricks! broadcast on 21 September 2016, marking the 40th anniversary of Carl Andre's sculpture Equivalent VIII, better known as "The Tate Bricks".
In 2017, Parker made a series of blackboard drawings with the collaboration of 5- to 10-year-old schoolchildren from Torriano Primary School. The children were asked by the artist to copy out news headlines collected from various UK and US newspapers. "At that age, children have a barely formed view of the news and world affairs - they don't yet have a vote, but the political turmoil unfolding in their young lives will have a profound effect on their futures."[34]
In November 2019 Parker opened her first major retrospective exhibition in Australia at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney for the Tenth Sydney International Art Series.[35]
In May 2022 Parker exhibited 100 artworks at Tate Britain in her largest solo exhibition to date. She showed several of her films, Chomskian Abstract 2007, Made in Bethlehem 2012, War Machine 2015, American Gothic 2016, Left, Right & Centre 2017,[36]Election Abstract 2018, Thatcher’s Finger 2018 and Flag 2022. Tabish Khan, reviewing the exhibition for Culture Whisper, said "Conceptual art can often be seen as abstruse but Cornelia Parker is able to make it accessible and playful, yet she also adds a level of intelligent rigour to her work that challenges us to think about the wider world we live in. It’s precisely what conceptual art should be."[37]
In May 2023, her photograph "Snap" was used as the cover artwork for the Peter Gabriel song "Four Kinds of Horses".[38][39]
In November 2024, Parker's glass rendition of the chandelier featured in Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Portrait was suspended in the Procuratie Vecchie in St Mark's Square, Venice.[40] This work was created as part of Murano Illumina il Mondo (“Murano Lights Up the World”) and was the first time in living memory that artworks were permitted to be displayed in the colonnade.[40][41]
Curatorial
In 2011 Parker curated an exhibition titled Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain for the Collections Gallery at the Whitechapel Gallery in London using selected works from the Government Art Collection arranged as a colour spectrum.
For the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2014, Parker curated the Black and White Room which included a number of well-known artists who she thought should be future Royal Academicians.
In 2016, as part of her Hogarth Fellowship at the Foundling Museum, Parker curated a group exhibition titled FOUND[42] presenting works from over sixty artists from a range of creative disciplines, asked to respond to the theme of "found", reflecting on the museum's heritage.
Honours and recognition
In 2010 Parker was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts, London and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.[43] In 2000, 2005 and 2008 and 2017 she received Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Gloucestershire and Manchester respectively.
Parker was named the official Election Artist[32] for the 2017 general election in the United Kingdom. In this role she observed the election campaign leading up to the vote on 8 June, and was required to produce a piece of art in response. Parker created two films and a series of 14 photographic works as a result of this commission, which were previewed on BBC Newsnight on 2 February 2018[45] and made available online via the UK Parliament website prior to an exhibition in Westminster Hall.[46]
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