British artist Cornelia Parker had more than a thousand silver items flattened by a steamroller and used the remnants to create Thirty Pieces of Silver.
Parker, who was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997, is known for works in which she appropriates objects and subjects them to acts of violence. In her careful manipulation and subsequent display of the remains, she exposes layers of meaning within them.
For Thirty Pieces of Silver (1988-9), Parker scoured junk shops and boot sales to collect silver objects no longer wanted by their owners, including plates, spoons, candlesticks, cigarette cases, teapots and trombones. She then laid them out on a road and arranged for a steamroller to run over them. The contorted results are shown suspended in thirty disc-like formations, hovering a few inches above the gallery floor, which gives them an ephemeral, fluid appearance.
Parker is interested in the metamorphoses of form and meaning that objects can undergo. Many silver objects have a sentimental or commemorative value over and above their material worth, whether a sports-day trophy or a wedding present of best cutlery, and yet they eventually turn up in junk shops. The title alludes to the payment given to Judas Iscariot in exchange for betraying Jesus. Whether the theme of betrayal relates to Parker’s act of what she calls ‘cartoon violence’ or to the former owners’ relinquishment of the objects is open to conjecture.
Cornelia Parker was born in 1956 in Cheshire, England. She lives and works in London.
Curated by Helen Sainsbury
