Cornelia Parker's "Thirty Pieces of Silver" Installation in a Church

YORKSHIRE POST

Assistant curator in the middles of “Thirty Pieces of Silver" installation

ENGLAND - Blowing up a shed and squashing a brass band’s instruments aren’t the kind of things we normally associate with artists, but Cornelia Parker is anything but conventional. The renowned British-born sculptor and artist has made her name through subverting our perception of objects and one of her most recognisable works – Thirty Pieces of Silver – goes on display in the nave of York St Mary’s from Saturday. The work includes plates, spoons, candlesticks, trophies, cigarette cases, teapots and trombones, which Parker collected and then squashed with a steamroller. Thousands of flattened objects have been arranged into 30 disc-shaped groups and suspended from the roof of the former church by fine wires, so that they appear to hover. The installation, which is on show until the end of October, is part of Art in Yorkshire – a year-long celebration of the visual arts in 19 galleries throughout Yorkshire, supported by the Tate. Thirty Pieces of Silver, part of the Tate’s collection, shows Parker’s fascination with metal and is the seventh installation to be displayed in the medieval church. Parker created the work in 1989 and writing the following year in the British Art Show catalogue for the Hayward Gallery, London, she said: “Thirty Pieces of Silver is about materiality and then about anti-matter. In the gallery the ruined objects are ghostly, levitating just above the floor, waiting to be reassessed in the light of their transformation. “The title, because of its biblical references, alludes to money, to betrayal, to death and resurrection: more simply it is a literal description of the piece.” [link]