Artist inspired by Hitchcock and Hopper for 'PsychoBarn' installation on museum rooftop
by Kim Megson | 18 Apr 2016
Acclaimed artist Cornelia Parker has taken inspiration from the paintings of Edward Hopper and the ominous Bates mansion from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho to create a large-scale roof garden commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
For the fourth year running, the Met has organised a site-specific rooftop exhibit mixing architecture, art and design. The Roof Garden Commission: Cornelia Parker, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn), which opens to the public tomorrow (19 April), is a 30ft mansion-like structure fabricated from a deconstructed red barn – itself an emblem of American architecture – which provides an unusual contrast to the Manhattan skyline.
On close inspection, the house is revealed to be formed of two facades propped up from behind by scaffolding. Parker’s design is intended to combine the authentic and the illusory, evoking the psychological associations embedded in architectural spaces.
The shape of the house is inspired by Hopper’s 1925 painting House by the Railroad and the home of Norman Bates in Hitchcock’s classic 1960 horror. In contrast, the blood-red paint, wooden floors, whitewashed posts and corrugated steel roofing are intended to underline that the materials were once used as a barn on a New York farm.
In a statement, the Met said: “The piece flickers between the physical reality of the barn and the cinematic fiction of the house, bringing up their respective ties to comfort and discomfort. Neither entirely real nor completely false, it vacillates unnervingly between its identities.
“The title of Parker's work alludes to the psychoanalytic theory of transitional objects used by children to help negotiate their self-identity as separate from their parents.”
Sheena Wagstaff, the museum's chair of modern and contemporary art, added: “Cornelia has developed an astonishing architectural folly. It intertwines a Hitchcock-inspired iconic structure with the materiality of the rural vernacular.
“Combining a deliciously subversive mix of inferences, ranging from innocent domesticity to horror, from the authenticity of landscape to the artifice of a film set, Cornelia's installation expresses perfectly her ability to transform clichés to beguile both eye and mind."
Funding for the exhibit, which will run until 21 October 2016, has been provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies and Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.
Parker is known for her fascination with material and popular culture and throughout her career has attempted to transform familiar objects into something new. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, and she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2010.
Cornelia Parker Alfred Hitchcock Edward Hopper PsychoBarn Metropolitan Art Museum New York rooftop sculpture Manhattan
Parker used blood-red paint, wooden floors, whitewashed posts and corrugated steel roofing to underline that the materials were once used for a barn on a New York farm Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Edward Hopper's painting House by the Railroad was one of Parker's inspirations
The house that featiures in Alfred Hitchcock's classic horror film Psycho influenced the shape of Parker's installation
The house is formed of two facades propped up from behind by scaffolding, using materials sourced from a traditional red American barn Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
18 Mar 2016
Iconic Marcel Breuer gallery re-opens today to showcase Metropolitan Museum's contemporary art
Acclaimed artist Cornelia Parker has taken inspiration from the paintings of Edward Hopper and the ominous Bates mansion from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho to create a large-scale roof garden commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For the fourth year running, the Met has organised a site-specific rooftop exhibit mixing architecture, art and design. The Roof Garden Commission: Cornelia Parker, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn), which opens to the
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