This Month In 1989 - Cornelia Parker

Art Monthly Cover 1989 

Cornelia Parker, Thirty Pieces of Silver (exhaled), Ikon (2014)

  It was by chance that I came across a review of Cornelia Parker's installation - 30 Pieces of Silver - a commissioned piece for Ikon Gallery, Birmingham in 1988-1989. It is now been shown (in part) at Ikon once again as part of As Exciting As We Can Make It: Ikon in the 1980's exhibition which is part of it's 50th anniversary celebrations.

Parker famously hired a steam roller to compress 1,000 pieces of silver objects - or plated objects - in a decorous performance that turned objects of commemoration and social status in to objects stripped of their initial function, like in many pieces of work by Parker, the objects are given new meaning.

Here described as 'A simulacrum for a gallery; a product and celebration of surplus' apparently tainted by it's own elegance. Silver is a precious metal, a treasure formed in to objects of material worth. The success in this piece is the loss of potentiality within the object when it is transformed 'If Parker had used real silver made into objects of beauty, the statement would have been more robust and the performance a reality.' Think of KLF burning 1 million pounds, if this had been fake money would it of had the same impact? I think not. 

The resurrection of the flattened objects is in their display, a silver lining. Thirty pools of delicately poised configurations make up the full scale version of this work. Changing perceived cultural values, traces alluding to betrayal and status as the viewer looked down upon the hovering remains.