This display focuses on William Blake and several of his contemporaries. All artists used the human figure to explore
intense emotional states
In the eighteenth century, figure drawing was the basis of artistic training. Most of the artists in this room studied or taught at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Students had to start by copying casts of ancient sculpture. Only later could they draw live models. Accurately depicting an observed figure was a prized skill. It was essential for painters of portraits and historical and narrative subjects.
These artists studied human form, movement, character and expression. But they applied this knowledge to unconventional, visionary scenes. Gods, heroes, demons and monsters populate their drawings and prints. These arose from their imaginations and from highly personal readings of myth, literature and history. As well as looking to the art of the past, they used topical incidents as inspiration. They caricatured, exaggerated and transformed contemporary public figures. The results are funny, grotesque and sometimes disturbing.
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Mountain Scene with Lake and Hut’ circa 1840-5, JMW Turner, N05476, Tate Collection 1998
From 'Mountain Scene with Lake and Hut' circa 1840-5, JMW Turner, NO5476, Tate Collection 1998Canvas lining, ingrained dust and inkreliefPresented by the artist 2000T07634 Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Venetian Scene’ circa 1840-5, JMW Turner, N05482, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Mountain Landscape’ circa 1840-5, JMW Turner, N05486, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Scene in Venice’ circa 1840-5, JMW Turner, N05488, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Margate’ exhibited 1808, JMW Turner, N03876, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Rough Sea’ circa 1840-5, JMW Turner, N05479, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Chichester Canal’ circa 1828, JMW Turner, N00560, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Rough Sea with Wreckage’ circa 1830-5, JMW Turner, N01980, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘A River Seen from a Hill’ circa 1840, JMW Turner, N05475, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘Seascape with Distant Coast’ circa 1840, JMW Turner, N05516, Tate Collection 1998
Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
Cornelia Parker, From ‘The Tenth Plague of Egypt’ exhibited 1802, JMW Turner, N00470, Tate Collection 1998
From 'The Tenth Plague of Egypt' exhibited 1802, JMW Turner, N00470, Tate Collection 1998Canvas tacking edges and ingrained dustreliefPresented by the artist 2000T07644 Room for Margins became part of Tate's collection under highly individual circumstances. It was first conceived as a temporary installation for Cornelia Parker's 1998 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery using archive material lent from Tate's conservation department. It comprises six (not seven as detailed in Tate Facts 1998-2000, London 2000) canvas liners and five sets of canvas tacking edges, all removed by conservators in the 1950s and 1960s, due to their deteriorating condition, from paintings by J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in Tate's collection. A canvas liner is an unprimed layer of canvas placed over a stretcher before attaching the primed canvas on which the artist paints. This is done to protect the back of the painted canvas and to help keep it flat. Tacking edges are the parts of the canvas which have been folded around the back of the stretcher. Parker first saw the liners and edges in Tate conservation in February 1998 and was intrigued by their fragile beauty. Each liner bears water damage or tearing, and variations in tone and texture reveal the 'ghosted' image of the stretcher, occasionally with the imprint of the cross-brace visible. In Parker's work, each piece is displayed with an adjacent label citing the Turner painting from which it had been removed. The liners act as 'physical stand-ins' or metaphors for 'removal', their deteriorated state an eerie reminder of the vulnerability of works of art and the threat of physical loss. Moreover, Parker's individual framing of each canvas stresses the beauty and power of the liners as visual objects in their own right. Although they have research value as historical items, the liners and tacking edges are classified as residual or support material. Therefore, unlike the 'originals' from which they were removed, they were never accessioned into Tate's collection. By displaying them as a work authored by herself, Parker sought to question that classification and reveal it as arbitrary. The subsequent accessioning of the liners and edges in the form of the installation Room for Margins into Tate Collection adds to this meaning, effecting the shift in their status from temporary to permanent, from secondary to original material. Although the eleven pieces are regarded as part of a single installation, they can also be exhibited in smaller groups of no fewer than five. Room for Margins recalls Parker's longstanding fascination with the positive and negative values that we attribute to materials and the arbitrary basis by which we ascribe them. Her interest in reclaiming the 'waste' or 'disposable' counterparts to products of worth similarily informs her 1996 work Negatives of Sound (Frith Street Gallery), which comprises the black lacquer excreted during the process of cutting grooves into a vinyl record. This strategy of transforming a material's status without enacting any physical change to it provides an interesting complement to Parker's more familiar practice of transforming the value of an object or material through the use of extreme physical force. Examples of the latter include Thirty Pieces of Silver 1989 (Tate T07461) and Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View 1991 (Tate T06949). Further reading:Cornelia Parker, exhibition pamphlet, Serpentine Gallery, London 1998, [p.4].Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston 2000, reproduced p.42.Cornelia Parker, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 2001, reproduced in colour, p.46. Helen DelaneyDecember 2001
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artworks in Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and His Contemporaries
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