Cornelia Parker: FOUND, Foundling Museum

Cornelia Parker: FOUND, Foundling Museum

Making reference to Foundling Museum’s heritage, English sculptor and installation artist, Cornelia Parker, invites over 50 artists, writers and musicians to respond to the thematic concept of “found”.

Harnessing the creativity and innovation of artists with a multitude of disciplines, she has asked all artists to contribute with either a new or existing artwork that they have found and kept, something to be brought forward for the Spring exhibition 2016. Parker notes on the significance of thought behind the show: “in order for something to be ‘found’, it has to at some point in its history been ‘lost’.”

Transforming the museum into a “collective cacophony”, Parker encourages artists to interact with historic works from the permanent collection with the newly contributed ephemera. The exhibition was drawn from her thoughts around “tokens”;  Parker witnessed  and was inspired by small objects left by mothers with their babies as a means of identification, should they ever return to the Foundling Hospital to claim their child.

Participating artists include: Ron Arad RA, Phyllida Barlow RA, Jarvis Cocker, Richard Deacon RA, Tacita Dean RA, Jeremy Deller, Brian Eno, Antony Gormley RA, Mona Hatoum, Thomas Heatherwick RA, Christian Marclay, Mike Nelson, Laure Prouvost, David Shrigley, Bob and Roberta Smith RA, Wolfgang Tillmans RA, Edmund de Waal, Marina Warner and Rachel Whiteread.

Among the artists contributing to the exhibition are over twenty Royal Academicians, echoing the role that the Foundling Hospital played in the development of the Royal Academy. Founded in 1739 to care for babies at risk of abandonment, the Foundling Hospital was supported by the leading artists of the day, many of whom donated work, thanks to the revolutionary involvement of the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel.

FOUND, Foundling Museum, London, until 4 September.

Credits:
1. Bob and Roberta Smith, I Found Love (2016). © Bob and Roberta Smith.