January 21, 2006

Cornelia Parker at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

The two Parker works are stunning, both visually and conceptually.

Mass (1997) retrieves all the charcoaled pieces of a Lytle, Texas church that was struck by lightning and subsequently burned to the ground. The charred remnants are suspended from the ceiling to form a cubic mobile. The sense of order out of chaos, communal loss and recollection give this piece weight well beyond its visual brilliance.

Anti-Mass (2005) visually repeats the same theme: suspended charcoaled planks and pieces arranged in a similar cubic mobile form. This time the detritus comes from a Black church in Green Ridge, Kentucky that was burned to the ground by an arsonist. Whereas, Mass evokes congregational community, Anti-Mass documents a community in oppostion to its surroundings.

Juxtaposing these two pieces in one room was an act of commendable curating.