Research: Conceptual Art - Cornelia Parker

Research: Conceptual Art - Cornelia Parker

Introduction

Overview and Some Key Works

Cornelia Parker is a well-respected, established contemporary artist, living and working in London. She was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1997, has exhibited widely and achieved a number of awards for her work.  She is very individual, and her forte is conceptual art, installations and sculpture. She is a great exponent of materials and processes and themes concerning them are at the root of her work.

The work which made her name was Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991. For this piece she had a garden shed blown up by the army and suspended the fragments from the ceiling of the gallery. In the centre a light shines and casts shadows of the wood on the walls of the room, making a dramatic statement. It is as if the explosion has been controlled and suspended in time, before the debris falls to the ground. It is a good example of Parker’s creative process.

 

Cornelia Parker, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991

In The Distance (A Kiss with String Attached) (2003) Parker takes Rodin’s The Kiss and wrapped it in string. In doing so, Parker wanted to add something about the complications of love, feeling that as a romantic idea the original was too simplistic. She was saying that sometimes things that bind people together can at the same time suffocate them. Parker was also referring to the artist Marcel Duchamp, who, as an act of sabotage, draped a mile of string over a Surrealist exhibition in New York in 1942.

 

Cornelia Parker, The Distance (A kiss with String Attached), 2003

Another work inspired by art history, is Parker’s Landscape with Gun and Tree (2010), a 9m high shotgun leaning against a tree at Jupiter Artland near Edinburgh, which draws inspiration from Gainsborough’s “Mr and Mrs Andrews” (c.1750). The owners of the sculpture park are friends of Parker’s and they sometimes would go shooting, which ignited the connection in Parker’s mind.

 

Cornelia Parker, Landscape with Gun and Tree (2010)

Adams (2015) interviewed Parker and concluded that if she has a mission it is:

"to close the culture gap between literacy in science and art – not least because it represents our best chance of preserving the planet on which we all live". (p.7)

In the interview, Parker makes clear her own individuality, saying:

"I think just being an artist is a political act. Just doing things that are not mediated by anyone else. I don’t do many commissions because I don’t want to tick anyone else’s boxes". (p.7)

In making her works, Parker is pragmatic about her approach, describing it as scattergun. She never worries whether it is all going to link up and says:

"I don’t care if people don’t make all the same connections as me "(p.4)

This is a view which I find very refreshing.

Conclusions

Parker expresses individual views and leaves the viewer to make up their own minds on the meaning of her works. She follows in the footsteps of a number of innovative conceptual artists such as Marchel Duchamp, and the concept that the idea can be more important than the art itself. In my own practice I have researched and interviewed a number of contemporary artists, including Mandy Payne, who creates individual and thought-provoking work while at the same time, producing works which are not only technically inventive and challenging, but also thought- provoking. This is the aim I pursue – to produce works which reflect my Artist’s Statement to involve the viewer in considering aspects of the natural and man-made environment in a changing and challenging world.

Adams, T. (2015) I don’t want to tick anyone else’s boxes. [Online] The Guardian. 25 January, 2015. Available from:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/25/cornelia-parker-interview-i-dont-want-to-tick-anyone-elses-boxes-whitworth-retrospective 
Sooke A. (2013) Hay 2013: Artist Cornelia Parker on five works and the pieces that inspired them. Telegraph. [online] available from:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10077197/Hay-2013-Artist-Cornelia-Parker-on-five-works-and-the-pieces-that-inspired-them.html