Exhibitions: Unfolding Tales: Selections from the Contemporary Collection

The British artist Cornelia Parker always deploys found objects in her works. She tweaks them in different ways and, as she states, “formalizes the damage” by suspending, melting, or exploding the items and then arranging them in various configurations. This sculpture is made from scavenged collections of silverware that were first crushed by a 250-ton industrial press and then hung from wire. The violent flattening of the objects and their gravity-defying suspension just above the floor transform the silverware and relate to Parker’s interest in the concepts of death and resurrection. These themes are also implied by the work’s title, a reference to the coins for which Judas betrayed Christ.