Cornelia Parker

PsychoBarn (Cut Up), 2023

Mixed media; Presented on 3 walls, 400 x 812.5 cm each; Overall dimensions variable.

UNLIMITED | U76

Cornelia Parker’s PsychoBarn (Cut Up) was created from selected elements of an earlier work, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn), from 2016, which was commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum, New York. This was a facsimile of the famed mansion from the 1960 Hitchcock film Psycho, constructed from pieces of an archetypal American old red barn. The new installation deconstructs that building as an exploded view. The windows, doors, panels, and the corrugated metal roof have been weathered by seasons spent on both sides of the Atlantic. The panels are formally presented as a salon hang, seeming to hover over the surface of three walls with some occupying the floor. The shingled roof, windows, porch, and stairs are reordered using the Dadaist cut-up technique to create a new composition, a kind of inside-out barn raising.

Cornelia Parker (born 1956 in Cheshire, United Kingdom) is one of Britain’s most inventive and acclaimed contemporary artists. She is concerned with formalizing forces beyond our control, containing the volatile, and transforming it into something that is quiet and contemplative. Parker lives and works in London. © Art Basel