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CORNELIA PARKER, THE WHITWORTH, MANCHESTER
MARIA BALSHAW and CORNELIA PARKER

‘Brave artists, brave curators and brave gallery directors work. Rodin’s The Kiss was once again wrapped in a mile of
– that’s what makes a good exhibition work,’ says Cornelia string; the flying debris of her detonated garden shed, Cold Dark
Parker firmly. We’re speaking in the new gallery space at the Matter, was resurrected 24 years after it was first shattered; and
Whitworth, part of The University of Manchester, which re- a new companion piece, War Room, was built – a crimson mar-
opened in February after a £15 million redevelopment project. quee redolent of a medieval campaign tent. Most ambitious of
Declared Museum of the Year by the Art Fund this summer, the all was Blakean Abstract, a ‘meteor shower’ created using micro-
impressive transformation was masterminded by gallery direc- scopic samples of graphite taken from a drawing by William
tor Maria Balshaw, who selected Turner Prize nominee Cornelia Blake. This was orchestrated in collaboration with Nobel Prize
to launch the space with a major solo show this past spring. winner Kostya Novoselov to mark the opening night.
‘It takes an awful lot of work to make it look this effortless,’ Cornelia and Maria first met at a dinner at the Serpentine
says Cornelia. ‘So many things happen at the last minute – Galleries in 2010. ‘All the while we were talking I was thinking
which requires a certain amount of bravery and trust from that I really wanted her to do the exhibition,’ says Maria, ‘so
Maria and her team.’ The gallery opened on Valentine’s Day and I invited her to Manchester to see what we were doing.’ The
‘we were shoving the last paintbrushes into a cupboard as the decision to collaborate was made and they spent the next five
public stepped through the door’, recalls Maria. ‘Some artists years working together to conceive the show.
wouldn’t be able to cope with that but I knew Connie could.’ ‘One of my roles is matchmaking: the right artist, the right
‘I remember seeing the size of the space and going home and space, the right curator, even the right technician,’ says Maria.
quietly having kittens,’ says Cornelia. Despite this initial panic, They need to be an intellectual and emotional match. It’s a risk
the result was an impressive survey of some of her best-known but a very lovely one.’ whitworth.manchester.ac.uk

NOVEMBER 2015 HOUSEANDGARDEN.CO.UK