Cornelia Parker: PsychoBarn (Cut Up): Art Basel Unlimited

In 2016 Parker was commissioned to make an installation for the roof garden of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Transitional Object (PsychoBarn), was a facsimile of the Bates Mansion from the 1960 Hitchcock film Psycho, but constructed from the wood of an old red barn from upstate New York. The Bates mansion itself has re-appeared in many different incarnations since Psycho including in The Viginian and Boris Karloff’s Mystery Theater.

A faithful copy of the original film set Transitional Object (PsychoBarn), consisted of two facades propped up from behind with scaffolding. Hitchcock used Edward Hopper’s painting, House by the Railroad, as his inspiration for the house in Psycho. American politicians often stand in front of red barns to make their speeches, they’re symbolic, a metaphor for wholesomeness. One of the European origins of the familiar red colour of the barns was derived from animal blood mixed with oil. Parker was playing with polarities, good and evil and PsychoBarn was a condensation of these ideas.

After weathering the spring and the baking heat of a New York summer sited on the roof of the Met, the work was dismantled and shipped to London, Hitchcock’s city of birth. It was installed in the courtyard of the Royal Academy in 2018 where it braved the rain and snow of a British winter. Finally, it was dismantled and stored as flat-packed pieces.

Parker was attracted by newly discovered shapes of the packed-down pieces of PsychoBarn. PsychoBarn (Cut-Up) is a kind of exploded view of these elements presented as an encompassing installation. The new work’s title refers to the Dadaist cut-up technique, where a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new meaning. Found elements are a recurring motif in Parker’s practice and she employed a similar methodology in There must be some kind of way outta here (2016), a wall-based work created from pieces of a dismembered staircase from Jimi Hendrix’s London home.

PsychoBarn (Cut Up) is one of Cornelia Parker's most ambitious installations to date. Art Basel Unlimited 2023 is the first public exhibition of work.

It has already received international attention, being spotlighted by Designboom as one to watch and chosen by Aesthetica Magazine as one of the top five presentations to see at the fair. French magazine Numéro heralds Parker for creating ‘astonishment with this unprecedented work’ noting its play on the ‘borders between reality and fiction.’