0:00:07 > 0:00:11As a child, Cornelia Parker had an unusual hobby.
0:00:14 > 0:00:16She would take her pocket money,
0:00:16 > 0:00:22lay it on the railway track and wait for it to be violently squashed.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27I was terrified of trains.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31I remember my older sister, you know,
0:00:31 > 0:00:34forced me to stay there when a train went by, and I kind of...
0:00:34 > 0:00:36No, it was good, in a way,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39cos I think it sort of broke the spell a bit.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42I would never have done the putting the coins on the railway track
0:00:42 > 0:00:44if she hadn't helped me get through the fear.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52The coins that I squashed on the railway track,
0:00:52 > 0:00:53I kept for a long time,
0:00:53 > 0:00:56you know, I'd got them as this token of destructive power,
0:00:56 > 0:00:58this terrible beast.
0:01:00 > 0:01:04And then, you know, that began a long relationship with squashing!
0:01:20 > 0:01:24Cornelia Parker is one of Britain's most original and inventive artists.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34A sculptor working with found materials,
0:01:34 > 0:01:36she often uses brutal methods
0:01:36 > 0:01:40to transform everyday objects into delicate,
0:01:40 > 0:01:42thought-provoking works of art.
0:01:46 > 0:01:50There was always a kind of dark undertow to everything I did
0:01:50 > 0:01:52and still do.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05Cornelia is celebrated by art critics at home.
0:02:07 > 0:02:08But this summer, she's in New York.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16She's here to take on the most prestigious
0:02:16 > 0:02:18commission of her career,
0:02:18 > 0:02:23a site-specific piece for the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28When I actually came up and saw Central Park
0:02:28 > 0:02:30and the skyline of New York I just thought,
0:02:30 > 0:02:34"Well, you couldn't wish for a better plinth, could you?"
0:02:35 > 0:02:38So I just thought I'd add something to the view.
0:02:38 > 0:02:40This is one of the great museums of the world.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42Everyone's going to be coming to this.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44There's a lot... So no pressure, then?
0:02:44 > 0:02:47- No pressure, no.- No.- I try not to think about the pressure.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49- There is pressure, though. - There is pressure.
0:02:49 > 0:02:51But life's too short. You only get these chances, you know,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54once in a while, so you just grab them when you can.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59By the end of this journey, you'll have to take me away!
0:02:59 > 0:03:00Get me committed!
0:03:15 > 0:03:19Like many of the best stories, this one begins with a road trip.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26In America, there's all that distance and in the distance,
0:03:26 > 0:03:29there's plenty of space for your imagination.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34There's so many amazing on-the-road films.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Films is where we get our idea of America from.
0:03:39 > 0:03:40Look at this. Amazing.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44Nice log cabin.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50In search of inspiration for her Met roof commission,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54Cornelia is turning to the architecture of rural America.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01I just had this vision straight away of a Dutch red barn sitting on the
0:04:01 > 0:04:04roof of the Met, with all the skyscrapers behind it,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07so taking it back to its very earliest rural roots,
0:04:07 > 0:04:09when it was wilderness, really.
0:04:11 > 0:04:13So we're on a red barn hunt.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16I want to track down one of these archetypes that I've
0:04:16 > 0:04:18been dreaming about.
0:04:23 > 0:04:28The red barn's wholesome image is deep-rooted in the American psyche.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35It harks back to the earliest European settlers and represents the
0:04:35 > 0:04:39American dream of building a better life through honest toil.
0:04:43 > 0:04:47It's an image now routinely exploited as
0:04:47 > 0:04:50a patriotic backdrop for politicians on the campaign trail.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57Oh, look. There's one. Gorgeous.
0:04:59 > 0:05:00Just take that.
0:05:00 > 0:05:01Beautiful.
0:05:04 > 0:05:10Cornelia's ambitious idea is to take a traditional red barn and place it
0:05:10 > 0:05:11on the roof of the Met.
0:05:11 > 0:05:12Oh, it's gorgeous.
0:05:12 > 0:05:13It's fantastic.
0:05:24 > 0:05:28It's a project that will see her delving deep into her own
0:05:28 > 0:05:30rural upbringing.
0:05:31 > 0:05:32Takes me back.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37That smell of the hay is fantastic.
0:05:38 > 0:05:39And the cobwebs.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42This is just...
0:05:42 > 0:05:44taking me back to somewhere...
0:05:44 > 0:05:46Obviously, a much smaller place.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Born in 1956 in rural Cheshire,
0:06:05 > 0:06:08Cornelia Parker grew up on a smallholding.
0:06:10 > 0:06:12So what kind of kid were you?
0:06:12 > 0:06:13What kind of child were you?
0:06:13 > 0:06:15I was a tomboy. I mean, my father
0:06:15 > 0:06:18had wanted desperately to have a son and he got three girls.
0:06:18 > 0:06:19I was the only planned one.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23I was the middle one but I was the one that was going to be a boy,
0:06:23 > 0:06:27and then, I wasn't, so my father said, "Right, OK,
0:06:27 > 0:06:29"you know, this one's mine,"
0:06:29 > 0:06:33so I became, quite early on, almost like his
0:06:33 > 0:06:37sidekick, his person to go out and muck out the pigs and do all the
0:06:37 > 0:06:40digging and all the physical labour and worked incredibly hard.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42I had a very hard-working childhood.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44Did you find the notion that you were
0:06:44 > 0:06:46the surrogate son a problem or an
0:06:46 > 0:06:50- opportunity?- I think the whole being brought up as a boy was a bit
0:06:50 > 0:06:52strange, because I'd go to school, you know,
0:06:52 > 0:06:56with dirt on my fingernails and I had, you know,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59sort of grafter's hands and all the girls at school
0:06:59 > 0:07:00had delicate hands and
0:07:00 > 0:07:04I felt very self-conscious, because I was obviously,
0:07:04 > 0:07:08you know, covered in bruises and stuff and climbing trees.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12And so, yeah, it set me slightly apart.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20I think I was very shy but I communed with the animals.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23Hello.
0:07:25 > 0:07:26Hello!
0:07:27 > 0:07:32We had cows and pigs and cats and dogs and I felt very much at home,
0:07:32 > 0:07:33you know, with the creatures.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38Come on.
0:07:38 > 0:07:39How did you entertain yourself
0:07:39 > 0:07:43when you weren't reading and being shouted at?
0:07:43 > 0:07:44Erm...
0:07:44 > 0:07:47Well, I would disappear.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49I'd go off down the fields and I could, you know,
0:07:49 > 0:07:52go for miles around and just be absent.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57That was the only way I could get to play or have time for myself and
0:07:57 > 0:08:00then, my father would be angry when I came back, because, you know,
0:08:00 > 0:08:01I was needed to do other things.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04So time off was stolen, basically,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08and so that was something, I think,
0:08:08 > 0:08:12which informed by career, because making art was like extended play,
0:08:12 > 0:08:16so I chose this thing that I wasn't allowed to do as my career.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27I'm just thinking about scale now
0:08:27 > 0:08:29and how that will look as the skyline of New York.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33I want to imagine what that's like on the roof of the Met.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37Oh, lovely and warm.
0:08:37 > 0:08:38Temperature and colour.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40I mean, that's the colour I want.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44I want this kind of archetypal red.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47Traditionally, you know, in Europe,
0:08:47 > 0:08:53the red came from mixing either rust or animal blood with linseed oil.
0:08:59 > 0:09:03With Cornelia Parker, things are rarely straightforward or benign.
0:09:05 > 0:09:07While researching red barns,
0:09:07 > 0:09:10her thoughts turned to a much more sinister piece.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16I think in my work, there's always a bit of a dark undertow,
0:09:16 > 0:09:18so the barn on the roof would've been great,
0:09:18 > 0:09:20but it wasn't dark enough,
0:09:20 > 0:09:23you know, and I suppose that it's like that duality.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27I've always liked that ambiguity.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30The good and the evil, the benign and the malign.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35It's almost like getting the temperature right.
0:09:35 > 0:09:36You don't want things to be too sweet,
0:09:36 > 0:09:40or you don't want to be too unsavoury! But somehow, you know,
0:09:40 > 0:09:42you want all those things in there.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50And I was trying think what the barn represented.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53It seemed to be about wholesomeness in America.
0:09:55 > 0:09:57And then I thought, "Well, what's the opposite of that?
0:09:57 > 0:10:01"What's evil? What's an evil piece of architecture? And I immediately
0:10:01 > 0:10:06thought of the Psycho house in the original film.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08PSYCHO THEME
0:10:10 > 0:10:12In 1960,
0:10:12 > 0:10:14the British director Alfred Hitchcock
0:10:14 > 0:10:18shocked American cinema with his darkly disturbing
0:10:18 > 0:10:20horror film, Psycho.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28It's a space where the terrible drama of family life takes place.
0:10:28 > 0:10:30This twisted drama.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42And in this house,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46the most dire, horrible events took place.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53Terrible things happen, relationships are distorted,
0:10:53 > 0:10:58the horrible impulses that underlie normality are played out to their
0:10:58 > 0:10:59murderous conclusions.
0:11:02 > 0:11:04I just thought, "Well, yeah, the Psycho house,"
0:11:04 > 0:11:08you know, and I thought, "Should I build the Psycho house on the...?"
0:11:08 > 0:11:13And then, somehow, the red barn and the Psycho house became fused.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15I just thought, "Well, I'll make one out of the other.
0:11:15 > 0:11:20"I'll get the Psycho house as it was in the original film, built out of
0:11:20 > 0:11:22"this innocent red wood."
0:11:33 > 0:11:37Cornelia Parker rarely works alone in the studio,
0:11:37 > 0:11:41preferring to draw on the specialist skills of others for a particular
0:11:41 > 0:11:42piece.
0:11:43 > 0:11:44For her Met roof installation,
0:11:44 > 0:11:47she is collaborating with Showman Fabricators,
0:11:47 > 0:11:50a set design workshop in New York
0:11:50 > 0:11:54where her PsychoBarn is beginning to take shape.
0:11:55 > 0:12:01The red barn is part of the American sense of who they are.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05It's still a foundation myth for Americans,
0:12:05 > 0:12:10so it's a wonderful collision of this bright,
0:12:10 > 0:12:16optimistic but mythical idea about pioneering America and this dark
0:12:16 > 0:12:20vision of a deluded killer.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31I wanted to know more about how Cornelia,
0:12:31 > 0:12:34a shy tomboy from rural Cheshire,
0:12:34 > 0:12:37became one of Britain's best respected contemporary artists.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43So we made the journey back to her childhood home.
0:12:44 > 0:12:46Never used to be a postbox there.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48No.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51'A place she hasn't revisited for many years.'
0:12:53 > 0:12:55- Home sweet home.- And so small!
0:13:08 > 0:13:10Wow!
0:13:10 > 0:13:12God, it's so small.
0:13:13 > 0:13:15There'd be two stalls here,
0:13:15 > 0:13:20for two cows, and I used to milk the cows by hand in here.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22So my stool down here.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25And when the cats were all lined up, I'd go and squirt their faces!
0:13:26 > 0:13:29But it's tiny, tiny.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32You know, I was obviously just a small child, but...
0:13:32 > 0:13:35And we had bullocks and we had heifers
0:13:35 > 0:13:37but they were out in the fields.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44That lime tree was very important to me as a child,
0:13:44 > 0:13:46because I spent a lot of time up in its branches.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50I also built a little...a little wooden house in there,
0:13:50 > 0:13:52so I could disappear off in there
0:13:52 > 0:13:56and so my father would shout at me to come down. "Get down!
0:13:56 > 0:13:59"Get chopping sticks!
0:13:59 > 0:14:01"Brush the yard."
0:14:01 > 0:14:05I remember, I always felt guilty for not doing anything useful.
0:14:05 > 0:14:07There was always a lot to be done.
0:14:07 > 0:14:08Where we're standing now
0:14:08 > 0:14:11used to be where we used to slaughter the turkeys.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14We used to put the turkeys' heads underneath a stick and we'd stand
0:14:14 > 0:14:17either side, and my father would pull the turkey.
0:14:17 > 0:14:18And that's why it broke its neck.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21So none of this intimidated you at all?
0:14:21 > 0:14:24I didn't know anything different. This was my childhood,
0:14:24 > 0:14:27so I was quite a willing, willing lad!
0:14:33 > 0:14:36Many years later, that explosive energy
0:14:36 > 0:14:38would be given a creative release.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42In 1991,
0:14:42 > 0:14:44Cornelia took a garden shed filled
0:14:44 > 0:14:47with the bric-a-brac of everyday life
0:14:47 > 0:14:50and asked the British Army to blow it up.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54'Five, four, three, two, one,
0:14:54 > 0:14:57- 'firing!' - EXPLOSION
0:15:00 > 0:15:05The debris was painstakingly collected and reassembled,
0:15:05 > 0:15:09to freeze for ever that fleeting moment of destruction.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27The institution of the garden shed, a kind of suburban institution,
0:15:27 > 0:15:29is something that she was aware of,
0:15:29 > 0:15:33the idea that you'd go to the shed to be alone with your thoughts,
0:15:33 > 0:15:35to escape from the intensity
0:15:35 > 0:15:38of family life, for example,
0:15:38 > 0:15:41was something that she was aware of and that the garden shed
0:15:41 > 0:15:43was male territory.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48And it's an analogy also for the human mind,
0:15:48 > 0:15:50all those thoughts that you can't quite get rid of.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54It's the stuff that you'd like to get rid of but you just can't.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05I mean, this, again, somehow seems to me to relate back to your father
0:16:05 > 0:16:07and that relationship.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11My father was a very dominant character and quite volatile.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13Quite mercurial. You know, he was quite a violent man.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18You know, and that's something that we all had to put up with.
0:16:18 > 0:16:19Not my mother but just the kids.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23I think he wasn't that keen on us taking attention away from him.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27I think he'd had 30 years of being looked after by his parents and
0:16:27 > 0:16:30being an ill child and all the rest, and he'd had a lot of attention,
0:16:30 > 0:16:34so I think we were competing with him for attention.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37And so, we never knew when his anger was going to erupt and, you know,
0:16:37 > 0:16:41me being the surrogate boy got quite a lot of that, you know,
0:16:41 > 0:16:42more than my sisters did.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45So I was always living on tenterhooks, you know,
0:16:45 > 0:16:47when people think about the volatility in my work,
0:16:47 > 0:16:51it might come from having to manoeuvre around
0:16:51 > 0:16:53somebody who was quite volatile.
0:16:53 > 0:16:55It's not something you've talked about before,
0:16:55 > 0:16:57the influence of your father.
0:16:57 > 0:17:02No. I never really brought my father up in the past and didn't want my
0:17:02 > 0:17:06work to be read through the lens of this tyrannical father,
0:17:06 > 0:17:10which really, perhaps, is more accurate, really,
0:17:10 > 0:17:14because he was quite a bully and quite a
0:17:14 > 0:17:18huge influence on all three of us, upbringing.
0:17:19 > 0:17:20He did, you know,
0:17:20 > 0:17:24he did quite a lot of damage which I'm happily working through
0:17:24 > 0:17:26with my art!
0:17:28 > 0:17:30Perhaps there is big explosions
0:17:30 > 0:17:32in my work and then there's the calm.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39Yes, and a resolution, which is quite often beautiful.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43Well, yeah, there was always a quiet centre to the work,
0:17:43 > 0:17:47even though it might have quite a volatile history, you know,
0:17:47 > 0:17:49there is a resolution.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52It's just making sense of disorder.
0:17:58 > 0:17:59It's unparalleled.
0:17:59 > 0:18:04I don't think it's comparable to any other work of art and it still
0:18:04 > 0:18:09remains shocking, enthralling, exciting to look at.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13It's, I think, one of the great works of the late 20th century.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44From the close-knit and claustrophobic world of her childhood home,
0:18:44 > 0:18:49Cornelia found an escape, first through her imagination,
0:18:49 > 0:18:50and then through her art.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59- When was it that you felt that this was your...- I wanted to be...
0:18:59 > 0:19:01- Yeah, your destiny or your...? - I don't know.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04I was good at it at school and it was the subject I enjoyed
0:19:04 > 0:19:08the most and I went on this trip to London
0:19:08 > 0:19:10for a week with the A-level art group.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18That was, for me, the most eye-opening thing.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24And it was just exciting to be away from the countryside,
0:19:24 > 0:19:28to get to see physical paintings for the first time,
0:19:28 > 0:19:30that I had taped to my wall at home.
0:19:38 > 0:19:40I'd never been to a museum before
0:19:40 > 0:19:43and I suddenly realised where art fitted into, you know,
0:19:43 > 0:19:46where culture was because I had not really experienced it at home.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51And I think that's when I turned the corner, that's when I thought,
0:19:51 > 0:19:55well, perhaps I could, you know, do something creative with my life.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00Was this a sort of rebellious gesture, being an artist?
0:20:00 > 0:20:02What would your father have thought of this?
0:20:02 > 0:20:05Well, you know, both my parents were very anti it.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08I, you know, stayed on to do A levels,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11which my father wasn't even that keen about me doing.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14But I fought for that cos I knew that was the only way I was going to
0:20:14 > 0:20:17be able to go to college and leave home, and so,
0:20:17 > 0:20:20I went to art school and my art teachers,
0:20:20 > 0:20:22even, didn't want me to go to art school.
0:20:22 > 0:20:24Cos nobody had been to art school from my
0:20:24 > 0:20:26Crewe Grammar School for Girls which I went to.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29Nobody'd gone to art school but I really wanted to go, you know,
0:20:29 > 0:20:31and I remember a friend of my mother's saying,
0:20:31 > 0:20:34"You must become an art teacher. Is that what you want to do?"
0:20:34 > 0:20:37I said, "No, I don't want to become an art teacher. I want to become an artist."
0:20:37 > 0:20:40And I remember being very definite about that.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43MUSIC: Rebel Rebel by David Bowie.
0:20:49 > 0:20:52In 1975, after failing to get into some
0:20:52 > 0:20:54of the better-known art colleges,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57Cornelia was accepted by Wolverhampton Polytechnic.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08The edgy, urban environment soon began to influence her aesthetic.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13What was that experience like, then?
0:21:13 > 0:21:15It was a very macho art school.
0:21:15 > 0:21:21It was 70% guys and sculpture, you know, I wasn't going there to sculpt.
0:21:21 > 0:21:23I was going there to be a painter.
0:21:25 > 0:21:30And I would sneak off to these derelict houses and start to make things in
0:21:30 > 0:21:33the derelict houses, which were not really art, you know -
0:21:33 > 0:21:36taking photographs and playing around with materials.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38And I was trying to paint things in the studio,
0:21:38 > 0:21:40like the light coming in through a window, you know,
0:21:40 > 0:21:43but I was struggling with representation and I just thought,
0:21:43 > 0:21:46"Well, this is not real life, this is paint, you know,
0:21:46 > 0:21:49"this is all pretending to be something else," and I just thought,
0:21:49 > 0:21:54can't I have real light coming? You know, I want to use real things.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58And then somebody suggested to me that I wasn't a painter.
0:21:58 > 0:21:59How did that go down?
0:21:59 > 0:22:02Well, it was quite a great relief, actually!
0:22:02 > 0:22:04And perhaps I should try some sculpture,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07cos I missed all the induction courses.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09I didn't do any of the induction courses for sculpture,
0:22:09 > 0:22:11so I didn't know how to do anything technically.
0:22:11 > 0:22:13And that was quite a good thing, actually,
0:22:13 > 0:22:19because it meant that I was trying things in a fairly ad hoc way,
0:22:19 > 0:22:21you know, which, coming from a smallholding,
0:22:21 > 0:22:22if we had a hole in the fence,
0:22:22 > 0:22:28you might put something in the hole and I kind of, you know,
0:22:28 > 0:22:33had this facility from childhood, so suddenly, I found my facility,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37you know, that using my hands in a physical way, rather than dabbing,
0:22:37 > 0:22:41you know, paint on canvas, was much more where my comfort zone was.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50Cornelia Parker's early sculptural works were created from materials
0:22:50 > 0:22:52gleaned from market stalls,
0:22:52 > 0:22:56car-boot sales and everyday objects from around her home.
0:22:57 > 0:22:59But in 1998,
0:22:59 > 0:23:04Cornelia's childhood obsession with squashing silver resurfaced and she
0:23:04 > 0:23:10orchestrated damage on an epic scale.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17It would lead to her largest and most ambitious work to date -
0:23:17 > 0:23:20one that would mark her coming-of-age as an artist.
0:23:28 > 0:23:3330 Pieces Of Silver was a brilliant tour de force of performance.
0:23:33 > 0:23:40It was produced by scouring charity shops and flea markets for discarded
0:23:40 > 0:23:45silver-plated objects and they themselves have a rather poignant history,
0:23:45 > 0:23:48because, of course, they are symbols of aspiration.
0:23:48 > 0:23:54Even modest homes would display a candelabra or be given a silver trophy
0:23:54 > 0:23:58as an award for sports day.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01They had a certain status which they have no longer and of course they'd
0:24:01 > 0:24:05been discarded, so she built up an enormous collection of these things,
0:24:05 > 0:24:07jugs, trophies, candlesticks,
0:24:07 > 0:24:12salt-and-pepper shakers and so forth and then proceeded to lay them out
0:24:12 > 0:24:16on a path and then rolled over them with a steam roller.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25Steam roller drivers are always wanting to squash stuff,
0:24:25 > 0:24:29so for them, it was just... They were very happy.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33About 20, 30 people had turned up with their kids and sandwiches and just
0:24:33 > 0:24:35made a whole day of it. They just loved it.
0:24:35 > 0:24:40There's a sort of catharsis of getting rid of stuff, I think, you know,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42a lot of people'd donate me their wedding presents,
0:24:42 > 0:24:45things that they didn't want to. Lots of people got lots of bits
0:24:45 > 0:24:47of silver plate hanging around the didn't really want.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51So people can go and see the exhibit and think, "That's mine!"
0:24:51 > 0:24:52Yes!
0:24:55 > 0:25:00She suspended each of those slightly sad object on a piece of wire.
0:25:00 > 0:25:07It's still a thing of wonder, to see them floating, hovering above space.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11There's a beauty, there's a fragility to it and there's this uncanny sense
0:25:11 > 0:25:14of the spirit of the object
0:25:14 > 0:25:17and the fact that it's become two-dimensional,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21is still something that we marvel at.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26If it could be squashed, Cornelia would squash it.
0:25:27 > 0:25:33Silver and its many and various flattened forms would become a recurrent theme.
0:25:34 > 0:25:38I suppose the steam roller was a very theatrical way of getting rid of something.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43They use that in Tom and Jerry and in Carry On films and it just seemed
0:25:43 > 0:25:47like a very visible way of destroying something.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57So I started to use the language of cartoons or slapstick,
0:25:57 > 0:25:59or silent films.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09I liked that overt, you know,
0:26:09 > 0:26:11violence they have in those films.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15There's a quote from your book,
0:26:15 > 0:26:21"Often in my work, I take beautiful objects and do extreme things to them.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25"So that they are overlaid with something a bit more sinister and violent."
0:26:26 > 0:26:29And you said, by the way, I'm sure an analyst could have a field day!
0:26:29 > 0:26:34So what is it about fear and violence that are so...
0:26:35 > 0:26:36So useful a source for you?
0:26:36 > 0:26:42If there is not a sense of anxiety there, then perhaps I feel like it's
0:26:42 > 0:26:45too sweet or to, you know, it's not me.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59The vein of darkness running through Cornelia's work runs through her
0:26:59 > 0:27:00family history, too.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05Her mother, Irmgard, was German.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14Aged just 16 when the Second World War broke out,
0:27:14 > 0:27:18she served as a nurse for the Luftwaffe throughout the conflict.
0:27:19 > 0:27:25She then spent to years as a prisoner of war after the declaration of peace.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30She would never talk about war at all.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33You know, she would shudder and not be able to talk about it.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38And she, you know, suffered psychologically, I think.
0:27:38 > 0:27:43She had a first breakdown I knew of, was aware of,
0:27:43 > 0:27:45was when I was about three years old.
0:27:45 > 0:27:47I'm sure quite horrible things happened to her during the war.
0:27:47 > 0:27:49Did she tell you about them?
0:27:49 > 0:27:51No, she didn't. She intimated, you know.
0:27:51 > 0:27:53I remember her telling the story about...
0:27:53 > 0:27:57erm, having a lovely, beautiful watch.
0:27:57 > 0:28:00That had been left to her and I said, "Oh, what happened to it?"
0:28:00 > 0:28:02"Have you still got it? She says, "No, no."
0:28:02 > 0:28:05And then I asked why and she said, "Oh, I had to...
0:28:05 > 0:28:08"I gave it to this American soldier."
0:28:10 > 0:28:14I was up a tree and he was attacking me and it was the only thing I could give him
0:28:14 > 0:28:17to make him go away, basically.
0:28:20 > 0:28:25I think German women after the war were sort of almost game for,
0:28:25 > 0:28:28you know, sort of,
0:28:28 > 0:28:30Allied troops coming in.
0:28:33 > 0:28:37And it was enough to make me realise that there was all kinds of stuff
0:28:37 > 0:28:41that she couldn't really talk about.
0:28:41 > 0:28:46With little to keep her in post-war Germany, Irmgard made her way to Britain...
0:28:47 > 0:28:50..where she soon found work as an au pair
0:28:50 > 0:28:52for a family on a Cheshire estate.
0:28:56 > 0:28:59It was here that she met Cornelia's father, Frank.
0:29:01 > 0:29:06What about the kind of sense that your mother was German, that...
0:29:06 > 0:29:11Did you find there was any sense in which you were being victimised for
0:29:11 > 0:29:13this at school in any way at all?
0:29:13 > 0:29:16Well, yeah. Very definitely, really,
0:29:16 > 0:29:20cos I was one of three girls and my sisters were called Alison and Jennifer
0:29:20 > 0:29:22and I was called Cornelia,
0:29:22 > 0:29:25which is bit more unusual and quite common in Germany
0:29:25 > 0:29:29and I think it singled me out at school, you know, that people knew I had a German mother.
0:29:29 > 0:29:32Whereas perhaps my sisters didn't.
0:29:32 > 0:29:38That escaped people's notice, and so I was quite victimised at school.
0:29:38 > 0:29:43A lot of anti-German sentiment - not that long after the war had finished.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47So yeah, and I had that feeling throughout my primary school,
0:29:47 > 0:29:53you know, that it was a heinous sin that the Germans had committed
0:29:53 > 0:29:57and so I kind of absorbed a lot of guilt for that.
0:29:57 > 0:30:02It wasn't a comfortable thing to have a German mother,
0:30:02 > 0:30:05you know, in rural Britain in the early '60s.
0:30:16 > 0:30:21In 2015, Cornelia created a video installation,
0:30:21 > 0:30:24reflecting on the human cost of war.
0:30:24 > 0:30:27And the sheer number of lives lost.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35Filmed in a factory that makes poppies for Remembrance Day,
0:30:35 > 0:30:37it's entitled War Machine.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56War Machine is created to be shown alongside an immersive installation.
0:31:00 > 0:31:02This companion piece was called War Room.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11The red card from which the poppy shapes are being stamped,
0:31:11 > 0:31:13rather than being thrown away,
0:31:13 > 0:31:19Cornelia uses these to drape over the walls and ceilings of this room.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23It's as if you're in this weird, red tent.
0:31:23 > 0:31:25It's quite disorienting.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32Then there is the poignancy of the absence of the flowers.
0:31:32 > 0:31:37I mean, these are sheets of card from which the flower shapes have been stamped and,
0:31:37 > 0:31:39you know, the obvious question is raised -
0:31:39 > 0:31:41where have all the flowers gone?
0:31:44 > 0:31:47The idea of the pointlessness of war is conveyed.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05With Cornelia Parker, there's no such thing as junk.
0:32:10 > 0:32:15She employs a weird and wonderful array of found objects in her practice -
0:32:15 > 0:32:19things with a history that she can work with or against.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25On a Sunday afternoon stroll down Brick Lane,
0:32:25 > 0:32:30Cornelia stumbled across an item that would become a work called Shared Fate.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35OK, this is an Oliver doll.
0:32:35 > 0:32:40From the 1960s, I think, and I bought in before I loved his grimace on his face.
0:32:40 > 0:32:44In the Dickens' story, the grimace's there, I think,
0:32:44 > 0:32:47because Fagin is tweaking Oliver's ear.
0:32:47 > 0:32:49I've always liked the grimace.
0:32:51 > 0:32:54And I kept him for a while not knowing what to do with him and then
0:32:54 > 0:32:58I thought he'd be really good for him to share the same fate as Marie Antoinette.
0:33:00 > 0:33:07So he's been cut in half using the guillotine that cut-off Marie Antoinette's head.
0:33:07 > 0:33:11Really, it's just an excuse for me to run my finger along the blade
0:33:11 > 0:33:13of the guillotine.
0:33:16 > 0:33:21Shared Fate is part of Cornelia's contribution to a show she's curating this summer,
0:33:21 > 0:33:24at London's Foundling Museum.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29The museum itself is loaded with a poignant history.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35The Foundling Hospital was a place where women would bring their babies
0:33:35 > 0:33:37that they couldn't look after.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42And the Foundling Hospital would bring them up.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47And then they would leave with the child a little signifying object.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51You know, something like a coin with something engraved on it,
0:33:51 > 0:33:53or a button,
0:33:53 > 0:33:55or a piece of fabric.
0:33:55 > 0:33:57Because most people were illiterate,
0:33:57 > 0:34:02and they would put that with the child's new name and record it in a book,
0:34:02 > 0:34:04so if, later on in life,
0:34:04 > 0:34:07the mother wanted to come back and claim the child, they could.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10And so, these foundling objects, these little tokens,
0:34:10 > 0:34:12were very much part of the collection there.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16And I just thought, well, we've all got our own little token,
0:34:16 > 0:34:17or a little found object.
0:34:20 > 0:34:25Cornelia's show at the Foundling Museum is called simply Found.
0:34:27 > 0:34:29She's asked over 60 artists,
0:34:29 > 0:34:31writers and musicians to respond to the theme.
0:34:36 > 0:34:40The exhibition unfolds throughout the building,
0:34:40 > 0:34:43interacting with the museum's existing collection.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49Cornelia's positioning of Gavin Turk's nomad,
0:34:49 > 0:34:52which casts the form of a homeless sleeper in bronze,
0:34:52 > 0:34:54is particularly striking.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59Feels very pertinent at the moment,
0:34:59 > 0:35:02because there are so many refugees.
0:35:02 > 0:35:07So I wanted this piece to be in here, in the most ornate room,
0:35:07 > 0:35:11just because it's quite baroque in its own right, but...
0:35:11 > 0:35:12But underneath this painting, here,
0:35:12 > 0:35:16I think it somehow echoes the shape of...
0:35:16 > 0:35:19I think it's Pharaoh's daughter, receiving Moses.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22She is full of largesse,
0:35:22 > 0:35:26and underneath it is this recumbent figure with a very dirty sleeping bag.
0:35:34 > 0:35:39The show features work by many of our leading contemporary artists.
0:35:39 > 0:35:43We are now unpacking Anthony Gormley's cast iron baby,
0:35:43 > 0:35:50which is a cast he took off his daughter Paloma when she was only a few weeks old.
0:35:50 > 0:35:56And it's now a cast iron sculpture that weighs about 27 kilos.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01I'm being very poignant about this piece, in this context.
0:36:04 > 0:36:08Found in an auction sale by artist Jeremy Deller is
0:36:08 > 0:36:12the 15-year-old John Lennon's school detention card.
0:36:14 > 0:36:20So, he gets detentions for "Not wearing a school cap, "groaning at me,
0:36:20 > 0:36:24"silly conduct, talk and foolish remarks..."
0:36:24 > 0:36:26And on the other side there's more.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30"Nuisance during lesson, very late, late for dinner."
0:36:30 > 0:36:32This is about a childhood. A troubled childhood.
0:36:32 > 0:36:36But, of course, that... His troubled childhood went on to change the world.
0:36:43 > 0:36:48The striking array of art on show is testament to Cornelia's powers
0:36:48 > 0:36:50of persuasion.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58Her personality and her enthusiasm is obviously very helpful and it opens
0:36:58 > 0:37:01doors, and people like her.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03So that's why this show is stuffed full of artists,
0:37:03 > 0:37:05because everyone just said yes.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23Cornelia's back in New York,
0:37:23 > 0:37:28to see how her Hitchcock-inspired Met roof installation is progressing.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31We can see how the...
0:37:31 > 0:37:33The Psycho barn is shaping up.
0:37:33 > 0:37:35So, it's pretty exciting because I...
0:37:35 > 0:37:38For weeks now, I've been talking to them on the phone and looking
0:37:38 > 0:37:41at plans and we've been discussing things in great detail.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44But it's really nothing, you know, it...
0:37:44 > 0:37:47It's very hard to read plans.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50And I just want to be able to see the physical object.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54In that window on the second floor, the single one in front.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58That's where the woman was first seen.
0:38:00 > 0:38:01Let's go inside!
0:38:11 > 0:38:14Well, this is it, you know.
0:38:14 > 0:38:16It's quite a...
0:38:23 > 0:38:28Wow. That's quite something.
0:38:28 > 0:38:31And this was all... The materials were all...
0:38:31 > 0:38:33This is all used material from the barn.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35So it's the red siding off the barn,
0:38:35 > 0:38:38and the windows are milled from the wood inside the Barn.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40So you can see, you know,
0:38:40 > 0:38:42it bears the marks of the structure it had before.
0:38:47 > 0:38:50And just like the house in Hitchcock's film,
0:38:50 > 0:38:54although Cornelia's sculpture appears three-dimensional, in fact,
0:38:54 > 0:38:56it only has two sides.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01So, this was exactly the same, and it's all propped up from behind.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04Like the original set, so I'm just copying that, really.
0:39:07 > 0:39:10It was while she was researching her Psycho barn,
0:39:10 > 0:39:14that Cornelia discovered the source of Hitchcock's inspiration for the
0:39:14 > 0:39:16infamous house in his film.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26It's just across town, in the Museum of modern Art.
0:39:26 > 0:39:28Oh, right.
0:39:28 > 0:39:30So, there it is.
0:39:30 > 0:39:31There it is. It's great, isn't it?
0:39:33 > 0:39:36It's a painting by the American artist Edward Hopper,
0:39:36 > 0:39:38called House By The Railroad.
0:39:40 > 0:39:42This was the key to the whole process, in a way.
0:39:42 > 0:39:44But then, it made complete sense,
0:39:44 > 0:39:46because this is the angle of the house in the film,
0:39:46 > 0:39:49and that's the only angle you see the house from, really.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52So... I thought, well, if I make this piece for the roof,
0:39:52 > 0:39:54it's got to be skewed on this angle.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59And we got the railroad here, and in the film, we've got the motel.
0:39:59 > 0:40:04- Yes.- So it's this horizontal with the vertical of the building.
0:40:04 > 0:40:06You can see why Hitchcock went for this,
0:40:06 > 0:40:11because there is something dark and mysterious about it, isn't there?
0:40:11 > 0:40:14Yeah, it's almost like this... the house has got a story to tell.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17Its eyes are... Are closed, as it were, you know, it's...
0:40:17 > 0:40:21It's kind of shuttered. And... And melancholic, and...
0:40:21 > 0:40:23And unassailable.
0:40:23 > 0:40:24You know.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37Cornelia's relationship with America goes back a long way.
0:40:38 > 0:40:44She first visited New York as a wide-eyed young artist in 1984.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49You've just got this adrenaline rush, you know, like you never had before.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52Every kind of action was going on in the streets,
0:40:52 > 0:40:57there was lots of people living in the park, a lot of drug dealing.
0:40:57 > 0:40:59It was quite edgy.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02You couldn't really stop and stare too much cos you'd just get mugged.
0:41:02 > 0:41:06You really wanted to be invisible so you could just watch
0:41:06 > 0:41:08this world go by, cos it was quite extraordinary.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11I think I was on this permanent high when I was there.
0:41:11 > 0:41:13The excitement was just palpable.
0:41:15 > 0:41:17In 1997,
0:41:17 > 0:41:23Cornelia delved deeper into American culture when she took up a residency in Texas.
0:41:27 > 0:41:29It would prove a life-changing trip.
0:41:36 > 0:41:40I really wanted to make a piece of work about something struck by lightning.
0:41:40 > 0:41:42So I was looking for some thing struck by lightning,
0:41:42 > 0:41:45so I alerted the Fire Brigade,
0:41:45 > 0:41:47you know, lightning protection people...
0:41:47 > 0:41:49Just kept my ears to the newspapers.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52And sure enough, 13 days after I arrived,
0:41:52 > 0:41:57there was a church struck by lightning a few miles south of where I was staying.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03I drove down to look at the burnt church,
0:42:03 > 0:42:06and asked the Minister if I could have the remain... You know,
0:42:06 > 0:42:07the charcoal from the church.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11And that became the ingredients of a piece of work called Mass.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18It was while she was working on Mass that Cornelia first met Texan artist
0:42:18 > 0:42:20Jeff McMillan,
0:42:20 > 0:42:23who would become her partner in the project.
0:42:26 > 0:42:29We really bonded over this long car journey,
0:42:29 > 0:42:33and we just ended up in this truck following my friends who were in the
0:42:33 > 0:42:36other car in front of us, and we had about a six hour journey.
0:42:36 > 0:42:38I hardly knew her when I got in the car, to be honest with you.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43And we just had this amazing conversation about art and life and music.
0:42:43 > 0:42:45By the end of the journey, I was...
0:42:45 > 0:42:48You know, I was a bit smitten already, you know,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51cos she was just a fascinating person to know.
0:42:51 > 0:42:53We really, we were just very...
0:42:54 > 0:42:55In sync, really.
0:42:55 > 0:42:57And it...
0:42:57 > 0:42:59And... I don't know.
0:42:59 > 0:43:01It was just...
0:43:01 > 0:43:03Quite wonderful.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05And then we built a church together.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08We suspended the fragments of a burnt church together.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18The work, entitled Mass,
0:43:18 > 0:43:22would form part of her Turner prize nomination show later that year.
0:43:30 > 0:43:31The best of her work, I think,
0:43:31 > 0:43:35is actually really beautiful and it works on this kind of visual,
0:43:35 > 0:43:37kind of visceral level.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40And that work, at least for the first few years I saw it, it, you know,
0:43:40 > 0:43:44when you would come across it, it still had this smell of charred wood, you know.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46Which was really potent.
0:43:57 > 0:43:59Cheesy!
0:43:59 > 0:44:03When Cornelia and Jeff married a year later,
0:44:03 > 0:44:05they chose not to do it in the conventional way.
0:44:08 > 0:44:09SHE LAUGHS
0:44:11 > 0:44:12Rather than a church,
0:44:12 > 0:44:16they came to the middle of New York's iconic Brooklyn Bridge.
0:44:18 > 0:44:2214th of August, Jeff and I walked 20 minutes up the aisle here
0:44:22 > 0:44:24and we got married on this spot.
0:44:24 > 0:44:26What about the noise level?
0:44:26 > 0:44:29The noise level was much louder as they were resurfacing the bridge.
0:44:29 > 0:44:33So we were really having to shout our vows over the traffic noise.
0:44:33 > 0:44:37So, why here? Of all the places, why Brooklyn Bridge?
0:44:37 > 0:44:38Well, A - we like the bridge.
0:44:38 > 0:44:42We love the drama of it all, you know, the kind of...
0:44:42 > 0:44:45You know, what it symbolises,
0:44:45 > 0:44:47the fact we're both from different continents,
0:44:47 > 0:44:50that we are making this big, you know, gesture together.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54And Jeff is from Texas, and I'm from England.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56So this is the halfway house.
0:44:56 > 0:44:57Halfway spot. So we like this.
0:44:57 > 0:45:01This is a place where you can just rock up and get married.
0:45:05 > 0:45:08Cornelia and Jeff would settle in London
0:45:08 > 0:45:11but in 2005 she would return to America
0:45:11 > 0:45:14and to the theme of burnt churches
0:45:14 > 0:45:18for a much darker companion piece to Mass.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24Anti-Mass is also made from the remnants of a burnt church.
0:45:27 > 0:45:31But in this case, the reason for its destruction was much more sinister.
0:45:39 > 0:45:42The congregation was largely African-American.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49And rather than being struck by lightning,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52this church was torched by arsonists.
0:46:06 > 0:46:08The usually-racist hate crimes, you know,
0:46:08 > 0:46:12lots of black congregation churches were burnt down and then...
0:46:12 > 0:46:14- By white racists.- By white racists.
0:46:14 > 0:46:18And I just thought... I was completely blown away by that.
0:46:18 > 0:46:21So you went and found the arsoned church in Kentucky.
0:46:21 > 0:46:24Yeah. Arsoned by bikers...
0:46:26 > 0:46:28..Hells Angels who used to ride up on the porch
0:46:28 > 0:46:33when there was a service on and intimidate the elderly congregation.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37And, you know, drove them out of the church.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40They all started to have congregations in their homes
0:46:40 > 0:46:43because they were too terrified to use the church,
0:46:43 > 0:46:45and then the church was torched.
0:46:45 > 0:46:47And that just felt very sad.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53The fragments of this church have come from something
0:46:53 > 0:46:56which is ideologically horrendous
0:46:56 > 0:46:58and continues to this day.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06She's shown us a vision of modern America which is quite shocking and
0:47:06 > 0:47:08which is really not very known.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12So she has exposed a daily reality through something which
0:47:12 > 0:47:16at first sight looks very formalist, very beautiful, very elegant,
0:47:16 > 0:47:19the way that it floats in space, and that duality, I think,
0:47:19 > 0:47:21is absolutely key to her work.
0:47:27 > 0:47:32And after the incendiary churches and wedding on Brooklyn Bridge
0:47:32 > 0:47:35- comes Lily.- And then comes Lily, several years later.
0:47:35 > 0:47:40No, three years and a day after we got married, Lily appears,
0:47:40 > 0:47:42very unheralded. I mean, unplanned.
0:47:44 > 0:47:46- Much heralded.- Not planned?
0:47:46 > 0:47:50Not planned. I was 44 when I became pregnant after a rather lax, uh...
0:47:52 > 0:47:54- Weekend.- Weekend. You know,
0:47:54 > 0:47:58and Lily, you know, came along and changed our lives.
0:48:04 > 0:48:08And what has been absolutely magical and brilliant about having Lily is
0:48:08 > 0:48:12I had my childhood, a proper childhood for the first time,
0:48:12 > 0:48:14really, one where I could play.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16And so she was having her childhood
0:48:16 > 0:48:18- and I was having mine at the same time.- You were having your
0:48:18 > 0:48:23- second childhood but one which was the one you should have had in the first place.- Yes, that's right.
0:48:23 > 0:48:26Being a mother, having a child, has that had an impact, do you think,
0:48:26 > 0:48:28- on your work?- Oh, I'm sure.
0:48:28 > 0:48:30I mean, I made a particular...
0:48:30 > 0:48:35I made a piece at the time I was pregnant when I was absolutely,
0:48:35 > 0:48:38you know, fearful that I was going to be a terrible mother and...
0:48:38 > 0:48:40And...the way I responded to it,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43because I was doing a show in Turin at the time,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46and so I was trying to find something to show
0:48:46 > 0:48:48in response to the Turin Shroud
0:48:48 > 0:48:54and I bought the nightgown that Mia Farrow wore in Rosemary's Baby.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56That scary movie.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05In Roman Polanski's horror film Rosemary's Baby,
0:49:05 > 0:49:09the heroine is tricked into giving birth to the Devil's child.
0:49:18 > 0:49:19What have you done to it?
0:49:20 > 0:49:23What have you done to its eyes?
0:49:23 > 0:49:24He has his father's eyes.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29There was a lot of anxiety around my pregnancy,
0:49:29 > 0:49:33just because of my age and all the rest of it - nothing untoward
0:49:33 > 0:49:34but just, you know, my own fears.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37And Rosemary's Baby was all about the birth of the Devil.
0:49:37 > 0:49:41So I kind of... When I saw this nightgown,
0:49:41 > 0:49:42I was looking for something.
0:49:42 > 0:49:44Was it at Sotheby's or something?
0:49:44 > 0:49:46Sotheby's auction, yeah, online in New York.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50And I thought, "Yes, this is it. I have to have this nightgown."
0:49:50 > 0:49:52BABY CRIES
0:49:52 > 0:49:53But it was great when I got it,
0:49:53 > 0:49:56and then I thought, "Oh, perhaps I'll wear it."
0:49:56 > 0:49:58Did you decide against that, did you?
0:49:58 > 0:49:59Yes, well, it was far too small.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06In fact, Cornelia turned it into a work
0:50:06 > 0:50:10for the Gallery Of Modern Art in Turin.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15Blue Shift is her response to the Turin Shroud,
0:50:15 > 0:50:18turning her anxiety into art.
0:50:23 > 0:50:25What did you pay for it, by the way?
0:50:25 > 0:50:27Oh, it was about £5,000, something like that.
0:50:27 > 0:50:29- Well worth it.- Yes.
0:50:39 > 0:50:41Brought up a Roman Catholic,
0:50:41 > 0:50:46the potent imagery of the church Cornelia attended as a child was,
0:50:46 > 0:50:48and remains, a powerful influence.
0:50:51 > 0:50:54We were sent off to church, me and my elder sister.
0:50:54 > 0:50:56I remember going off on the bus
0:50:56 > 0:50:58about seven miles to the nearest town
0:50:58 > 0:51:00to go to high mass every Sunday.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10It was quite heightened, I think, because we had gone on our own,
0:51:10 > 0:51:13and we were given money to put in the collection
0:51:13 > 0:51:15which we spent on chocolate.
0:51:15 > 0:51:18- And so, already... - I hope you went to confession.
0:51:18 > 0:51:20It's such a cliche, the whole Catholic guilt,
0:51:20 > 0:51:22but it certainly did play a lot on my mind
0:51:22 > 0:51:24that I had committed a mortal sin,
0:51:24 > 0:51:26so when confession came round the next week,
0:51:26 > 0:51:28I didn't tell them about what I'd done.
0:51:28 > 0:51:30I'd just invent something else which was lesser.
0:51:31 > 0:51:35So I lied all the way through my childhood in confession
0:51:35 > 0:51:38and then bore the weight of the guilt of that.
0:51:43 > 0:51:45And when did you lose that faith?
0:51:45 > 0:51:49When I was about 14, 15, I started to question things.
0:51:49 > 0:51:51I thought, well, if Christ forgives anything,
0:51:51 > 0:51:53why is there the concept of Hell?
0:51:55 > 0:51:56It all felt very flimsy.
0:52:01 > 0:52:03So I gradually lost it.
0:52:03 > 0:52:06But I didn't lose all the baggage that was with it, that was...
0:52:06 > 0:52:09- sadly remained.- Well, you say sadly.
0:52:09 > 0:52:14That has become very valuable material, really, in your work.
0:52:14 > 0:52:17Yeah, I think from living in quite isolated circumstances
0:52:17 > 0:52:21in the countryside and then having this vivid experience every week
0:52:21 > 0:52:23of the mass and, you know,
0:52:23 > 0:52:29the Catholic religion is peppered with overt visual imagery
0:52:29 > 0:52:32from the crucifixion to the small relic.
0:52:40 > 0:52:46In 1995, Cornelia explored the emotional power of the relic
0:52:46 > 0:52:49and the way we invest objects with meaning
0:52:49 > 0:52:51in a work called The Maybe.
0:52:55 > 0:52:57Part performance, part installation,
0:52:57 > 0:53:01The Maybe was a collaboration with the actress Tilda Swinton.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08Tilda Swinton is sleeping for a living in a new exhibition
0:53:08 > 0:53:11of performance art which has just opened in London.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14She's spending eight hours a day in a glass box.
0:53:14 > 0:53:16Is it a coffin or an aquarium?
0:53:16 > 0:53:18Is she really asleep or just pretending?
0:53:18 > 0:53:21Is it art or all pretentious nonsense?
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Cornelia surrounded the sleeping Swinton with glass cases
0:53:30 > 0:53:34containing relics belonging to prominent figures from history.
0:53:37 > 0:53:40Among them, Winston Churchill's half-finished cigar...
0:53:42 > 0:53:43..Arthur Askey's suit...
0:53:44 > 0:53:48..the rug and cushions from Sigmund Freud's analyst's couch.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54Shown over the course of a week,
0:53:54 > 0:53:57The Maybe was seen by over 25,000 people.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03It's not every day that a sculptor makes the six o'clock news.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09But Cornelia would make headlines again in 2003
0:54:09 > 0:54:11with a controversial work
0:54:11 > 0:54:15created for an exhibition of contemporary art at Tate Britain.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23I was curator of the Tate Triennial
0:54:23 > 0:54:27and there was a core group of artists immediately
0:54:27 > 0:54:30that occurred to me as the ones that I wanted to work with,
0:54:30 > 0:54:32and Cornelia was one.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37I had no idea what it was she would do.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42She had been interested in Rodin's Kiss for a long time.
0:54:43 > 0:54:49And then she had an idea of wrapping a mile of string around this couple,
0:54:49 > 0:54:52so naked and intimately embracing.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00The idea was inspired by one of Cornelia's artist heroes,
0:55:00 > 0:55:04the French surrealist Marcel Duchamp.
0:55:04 > 0:55:08In 1942, Duchamp mischievously wrapped a mile of string
0:55:08 > 0:55:11around a major group show in America,
0:55:11 > 0:55:13obscuring the other artists' work.
0:55:15 > 0:55:17I quite like quoting other artworks
0:55:17 > 0:55:21or flipping them on their head or inverting them in some way.
0:55:21 > 0:55:25This piece was called A Kiss, and in brackets, With String Attached.
0:55:30 > 0:55:32And this was quite shocking to people.
0:55:32 > 0:55:35To use Rodin's The Kiss,
0:55:35 > 0:55:40possibly the most famous sculpture in Britain.
0:55:40 > 0:55:48Very loved, a much-treasured symbol of passionate romance.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51It's part of our cultural landscape.
0:55:51 > 0:55:55I think it's an obscenity.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59I can't see the point of covering up a work of art.
0:55:59 > 0:56:00You can't improve on Rodin.
0:56:03 > 0:56:08But some people would go much further than just voicing their disapproval.
0:56:11 > 0:56:14So a group of artists calling themselves the Stuckists,
0:56:14 > 0:56:18who stuck up for good old-fashioned artistic values,
0:56:18 > 0:56:22decided to make what could be described as a terrorist act
0:56:22 > 0:56:24in the middle of the Tate Triennial
0:56:24 > 0:56:28and with huge scissors, they cut through the string.
0:56:34 > 0:56:36You...essentially, I'll put it this way,
0:56:36 > 0:56:37you vandalised it...
0:56:37 > 0:56:41and then your work was vandalised by the Stuckists.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44I know! Rodin must have been a hero to them.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48They decided to liberate Rodin's Kiss from me.
0:56:48 > 0:56:50So they had a seminar round it
0:56:50 > 0:56:53and some guy got a pair of shears out and chopped all the string off.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57To which I just tied the string back together
0:56:57 > 0:56:59and put it back on the sculpture.
0:56:59 > 0:57:01Slightly more punky version.
0:57:10 > 0:57:12From maverick interventions
0:57:12 > 0:57:14to piles of incinerated cocaine.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19From embryo firearms to pornographic drawings.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25The range and diversity of Cornelia's work is striking.
0:57:34 > 0:57:36But a certain subversive instinct
0:57:36 > 0:57:38is always a common theme.
0:57:39 > 0:57:43So, Cornelia, I'm looking through your list of collaborators.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49The British Army, the Royal Mint,
0:57:49 > 0:57:53prison inmates, customs and excise.
0:57:53 > 0:57:55- Authority figures. - Authority figures, yes.
0:57:55 > 0:57:59I think I have got a problem, you know, that I was trying to unpick.
0:58:03 > 0:58:05In 2015,
0:58:05 > 0:58:10Cornelia probed our relationship with authority and the legal system
0:58:10 > 0:58:15in a work commissioned to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta,
0:58:15 > 0:58:19the document that forms the bedrock of our democracy,
0:58:19 > 0:58:23and guarantees all freemen the right to a fair trial.
0:58:24 > 0:58:28I just had all these ideas but most of them, you know,
0:58:28 > 0:58:31they just didn't work and I spent all this time on Wikipedia.
0:58:32 > 0:58:35Thinking, this is far too big a thing, you know,
0:58:35 > 0:58:38it's had so many changes, it means all these different things and,
0:58:38 > 0:58:41you know, it's this and this and I thought, actually it's all here,
0:58:41 > 0:58:44it's all on this page. This is it, what I want to do is to
0:58:44 > 0:58:48get this off the machine somehow and make it into a handcrafted thing.
0:58:52 > 0:58:55Cornelia decided to recreate the Wikipedia page
0:58:55 > 0:58:59in a vast piece of embroidery.
0:58:59 > 0:59:03So it suddenly came to me in a bit of a blinding flash
0:59:03 > 0:59:04that this is what I wanted to do.
0:59:06 > 0:59:09To do so, she called on the sewing skills of people
0:59:09 > 0:59:11from all walks of life.
0:59:11 > 0:59:13From embroidery guilds...
0:59:14 > 0:59:15..to prison inmates.
0:59:18 > 0:59:22From journalist Alan Rusbridger, whose blood still marks the cloth...
0:59:23 > 0:59:25..to musician Jarvis Cocker,
0:59:25 > 0:59:28who contributed the words "Common People".
0:59:29 > 0:59:30I started doing "Common"
0:59:30 > 0:59:33on the train and I thought, I'm going to make a right hash of this,
0:59:33 > 0:59:36"it's a stupid idea" because the train was going like that.
0:59:36 > 0:59:39I took my glasses off, held it really close.
0:59:39 > 0:59:42I was quite pleased with what I'd got and, in fact,
0:59:42 > 0:59:44that turned out much better than
0:59:44 > 0:59:46when I actually sat down and took it seriously.
0:59:50 > 0:59:53And then, gradually, I started to introduce other...
0:59:53 > 0:59:55- Edward Snowden.- Edward Snowden.
0:59:55 > 0:59:59- Jimmy Wales, the inventor of Wikipedia.- Yes. Julian Assange.
1:00:00 > 1:00:02He embroidered the word "freedom".
1:00:03 > 1:00:06It seemed quite poignant for him to be doing that when he's...
1:00:06 > 1:00:09- He didn't have it. - He didn't have it, yes.
1:00:13 > 1:00:17I wanted prisoners who had been imprisoned for no good reason,
1:00:17 > 1:00:20like Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six.
1:00:21 > 1:00:23He embroidered the word "Freeman".
1:00:26 > 1:00:29Do you see yourself as a political artist in any way?
1:00:29 > 1:00:32Yeah, I think... I'm increasingly more political, I think,
1:00:32 > 1:00:34as I get older, because...
1:00:35 > 1:00:37I see injustices more and more.
1:00:38 > 1:00:41And so, although my work is not overtly political,
1:00:41 > 1:00:45I think there's obviously some kind of politics in there.
1:00:54 > 1:00:56Politics are very important to Cornelia.
1:00:56 > 1:01:01She has very strong political opinions but the great thing is
1:01:01 > 1:01:05that her work is not didactic. It's informed by those politics.
1:01:05 > 1:01:10You can read those politics in between the lines of her work,
1:01:10 > 1:01:12they insinuate themselves
1:01:12 > 1:01:17and, arguably, she is more effective as an artist,
1:01:17 > 1:01:18communicating political ideas
1:01:18 > 1:01:21because she's not hitting you over the head with them.
1:01:28 > 1:01:30Back in New York,
1:01:30 > 1:01:34it's been over a year since Cornelia was first invited to create
1:01:34 > 1:01:38an installation for the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
1:01:39 > 1:01:44But her PsychoBarn is finally ready for an unsuspecting public.
1:01:48 > 1:01:49SHE SCREAMS
1:01:49 > 1:01:51PSYCHO THEME PLAYS
1:02:22 > 1:02:25Replicating the house in Hitchcock's film,
1:02:25 > 1:02:30using reclaimed wood from a traditional American red barn,
1:02:30 > 1:02:34Cornelia's piece cleverly combines the cosy and the malign.
1:02:37 > 1:02:39- Hi, Alan.- Hi.
1:02:41 > 1:02:43- How are you?- Good.
1:02:43 > 1:02:47- I'm reading all about you... - Great.- ..in the New York Times.
1:02:47 > 1:02:48I'm so pleased.
1:02:48 > 1:02:53So, I must say, I think it's really worked out really well.
1:02:53 > 1:02:55And also, I love the angle.
1:02:55 > 1:02:58I think just trying to insert
1:02:58 > 1:03:02another building into the skyline of New York.
1:03:02 > 1:03:04Perhaps a little worrisome thought.
1:03:10 > 1:03:13They say every city skyline tells a story.
1:03:15 > 1:03:20The towering jungle of New York speaks of a city that has grown fast
1:03:20 > 1:03:22and matured quickly.
1:03:25 > 1:03:28Cornelia's PsychoBarn takes us back...
1:03:32 > 1:03:35..through American culture
1:03:35 > 1:03:38and art, and history...
1:03:40 > 1:03:43..to the nation's earliest roots
1:03:43 > 1:03:46with the first European settlers.
1:03:47 > 1:03:51In merging their hopeful optimism
1:03:51 > 1:03:53with Hitchcock's dark vision...
1:03:55 > 1:04:00..Cornelia strikes at the heart of America's collective memory,
1:04:00 > 1:04:01its wholesome foundation myth.
1:04:02 > 1:04:05There's a tragicomic element to this, I think,
1:04:05 > 1:04:08that it's got that familiarity of the red barn
1:04:08 > 1:04:09which makes you feel happy
1:04:09 > 1:04:12and then there's this dark undertow of what it is,
1:04:12 > 1:04:14it's not really a building, it's a facade,
1:04:14 > 1:04:16and it looks a bit melancholy
1:04:16 > 1:04:18and you don't know what's going on inside it.
1:04:18 > 1:04:19Then when you walk round the back
1:04:19 > 1:04:22you realise there's nothing inside it, it's just a facade.
1:04:30 > 1:04:32The PsychoBarn seems to have touched a nerve.
1:04:37 > 1:04:39Within minutes of its official opening,
1:04:39 > 1:04:41images are flooding the internet.
1:04:46 > 1:04:50It's always difficult for us to take outsiders being critical of our past
1:04:50 > 1:04:53but maybe only outsiders can do that.
1:04:53 > 1:04:58Maybe only an outsider can actually look at that American history
1:04:58 > 1:05:00and see the paradox in it,
1:05:00 > 1:05:03and the conflicts and the dark side.
1:05:04 > 1:05:07I think it's a very, very extraordinary work of art.
1:05:11 > 1:05:15MUSIC: Theme from New York, New York performed by Frank Sinatra
1:05:17 > 1:05:20Cornelia Parker is original and fearless and fun.
1:05:21 > 1:05:25And I, for one, can't wait to see what she does next.
1:05:27 > 1:05:30# Start spreadin' the news
1:05:31 > 1:05:33# I'm leavin' today
1:05:35 > 1:05:39# I want to be a part of it
1:05:40 > 1:05:43# New York, New York
1:05:45 > 1:05:51# These vagabond shoes are longing to stray
1:05:53 > 1:05:57# Right through the very heart of it
1:05:57 > 1:05:59# New York, New York... #