COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0005098
image_record_id
aahi0005098
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
Embryo Firearms
Image Title:
generalView
Work Dates (display):
1995
Work Dates type:
creation
Image Date (display):
2009-09-10
Work Creator (display):
Cornelia Parker (English, born 1956)
Work Creator gender:
female
work_creator_or_agent_gender
female
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
English sculptor and installation artist. After leaving Gloucestershire College of Art and Design in 1974, she undertook her BFA at Wolverhampton Polytechnic (19758) and her MFA at Reading University (198082). Even in its early stages, her work dealt with an intuitive understanding of the physicality of things. Her early installation works were imbued with poetic innuendos linked to the fragility of human experience. The substances used in the work of the late 1980s and the early 1990s, such as copper, charcoal and silver, were transformed through violent and dramatic means. Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991, London, Tate) is the restored three-dimensional volume of a garden shed exploded by the British Army at the request of the artist. The surviving fragments, suspended from the ceiling and lit by a single bulb, create a dramatic effect and cast shadows on the gallery's walls. This strategy was echoed in a later piece, Mass: Colder Darker Matter (1997, priv. col., see 2000 exh. cat. cover), made from a church burnt by a lightning strike. The carbonized wooden remains were hung in a similar way. Interested in the invisible, the unquantifiable (that is, the exact definition of the scientific term 'cold dark matter'), Parker worked not only with the altered scale and substance of things, but also with the meaning conveyed by found objects. The Maybe, an exhibition made in collaboration with the actress Tilda Swinton (b 1960) in 1995 (London, Serpentine Gal.) focused on the impressions that one has when confronted with the belongings of famous people. Parker selected curiosities from various museums, including Turner's watercolour box, Queen Victoria's stockings and Sigmund Freud's blanket, in order to elicit free associations from the beholder. Swinton was herself on display, asleep in another glass case. Parker's aim was not merely to question the power of relics, but also to create a mental route that triggers unexpected associations. The unconscious thread was made more humorously explicit in The Pornographic Drawings (1996, London, Tate) in which drawings resembling Rorschach blots were created from pornographic videotapes dissolved in solvent, the resulting marks resembling genitalia. She was shortlisted for the 1997 Turner Prize. (Aurélie Verdier. "Parker, Cornelia." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 18 Mar. 2009 .)
Work Style Period:
20th century
work_styleperiod
20th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
Contemporary
work_styleperiod
Contemporary
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
symbols
subject
symbols
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
transformation
subject
transformation
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
violence
subject
violence
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
firearms
subject
firearms
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
safety
subject
safety
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
production
subject
production
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
danger
subject
danger
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
sculpture (visual works)
work_type
sculpture (visual works)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
sculptures and installations
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
sculptures and installations
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Image Source Reproduction citation:
Jahn, Andrea, ed. Cornelia Parker- Perpetual Canon. Beilefeld, Germany: Kerber- Verlag, 2005.
image_source_copy_from_print_name
Jahn, Andrea, ed. Cornelia Parker- Perpetual Canon. Beilefeld, Germany: Kerber- Verlag, 2005.
Image Source Reproduction citation
false
Image Source Reproduction refid:
3-938025-02-6
Image Source Reproduction page number:
79
Image Source Reproduction plate-figure number:
top
Image Source Reproduction refid type:
ISBN
Image Rights fair use checklist:
1) use of this image is for education and educational research; 2) access is restricted to University of Colorado and Auraria Higher Education Center communities; 3) the original photographer is credited if known; 4) the image is published; 5) the amount of the work in relation to the whole is needed for education or educational research; 6) the number of derivatives is the minimum required for education or educational research; 7) the image has not been found to be reasonably available for sale; 8) duplication of the image does not violate preexisting contracts.
Work Rights (display):
© Cornelia Parker
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Collection
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see