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Cornelia Parker Perpetual Canon

I went to Gateshead today, walked to the now-being-demolished World Famous Car Park in Gateshead, then across the Big Green Bridge into Newcastle, had a coffee and sandwich and made my way to the Baltic.

Top floor, Viewing Box, Cornelia Parker’s Perpetual Canon. The one with the squashed musical brass band instruments.

This work is quite different seen from the elevation of the Viewing Box, different that is from the normal ground view you get when walking into the main gallery.

When you look down from the mezzanine level you see the instruments (they are flattened, and hung from nylon wires in a circle, how wide, 10 metres perhaps? They are lit from the centre of the circle by a single lamp, which casts shadows of the suspended instruments onto the walls. It also casts shadows of the audience, as they walk in round and past the exhibit.

What you see extra from the high view point is a different effect of the light on the instruments – the far half are seen as lit, the near half are in silhouette, a different level of dramatic effect from that at ground level.

The other thing that you see is a ring of reflection/refraction of the light bulb off/from the nylon suspension cords, which give the effect of a halo hovering above the ring of brass. Did you intend that, Cornelia? Its very good. Serendipity perhaps, and serendipity is also very good. I allow it in to my work, a lot.

If you go, also be aware of the contribution the floor makes, and also the ‘cap’ of the top of the gallery that is in your eye-line. These peripherals are all part of the complexity of seeing Perpetual Canon in this location, and perhaps nowhere else.

Postscript

Last night, Beeb 4 documentary about the Freud museum in London. (Note to self: never work for a small museum).

Today, same exhibition as above, a photogram of a feather CP found in a cushion on the couch in Freud’s study.

I have many found feathers, but regrettably none have been near anyone famous.


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