Cornelia Parker – looking for the overlooked

Associated media

This ‘first class introduction to Cornelia Parker’ is like an exhibition in book form, says Howard Hollands

Cornelia Parker by Iwona Blazwick with Foreword by Yoko Ono

What characterizes this wonderful account of the development of Cornelia Parker’s work is the relationship between the micro and the macro, between the personal response and the wider significance and relevance of her ideas. Parker, in her work, looks for the overlooked, and this publication skilfully weaves together an illuminating, annotated visual diary by Parker herself and five highly perceptive essays by Iwona Blazwick.

The book opens with a drawing of a bird made by Parker on her Foundation Course in 1974 and then proceeds chronologically to the present.

Parker describes her process:

Even though people think I am more of a conceptual artist, I am actually very intuitive. For me, it is still a matter of allowing things to naturally rise to the top of my mental pile and then I make them. So, in that sense, I'd always thought of my work as being a bit all over the place.

As a child Parker lived in an old cottage Cheshire; she describes the way the walls were lumpy, and badly painted, wattle and daub. ‘And I could see about 100 different faces in all the little cracks and dribbles, which I would have to identify before I could go to sleep.’ She admits that seeing things in that way wasn't a useful attribute at school as teachers would accuse her of daydreaming. This type of revelation, she says, was not about just staring out the window and being in her own head. She really was really paying attention – just not to what was going on in the classroom. ‘I was looking and thinking and honing something that I didn't discover would be useful until quite a long time later.’

In addition to a fascinating timeline, there is a very useful introduction by curator Bruce Ferguson, triggered by a quote from Emily Dickinson:

One need not be a chamber to be haunted
One need not be a house:
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place

The images work very well owing to the way they create an image-text dialogue. The publication becomes its own kind of exhibition. This quality marks this book out from many other monographs on contemporary artists. It is well pitched and really does do justice to the nature of Cornelia Parker’s work and is not overblown in any way.

I can recommend this book as both a first class introduction to Cornelia Parker, and, for those familiar with her work, a stimulating account that aids further reading and encourages deeper looking.

Cornelia Parker  by Iwona Blazwick with foreword by Yoko Ono is published by Thames and Hudson. 256pp., 351 colour & 10 mono illus, £35.00 (hbk). ISBN 9780500093733