Artist Fiona Banner’s installation in Tate Britain is intended to convey the intensity of a bird of prey trapped. It is fascinating and profound, writes Stephanie West.
The sight of a fighter jet, hanging from its tail-fin in Tate Britain, is fascinating and profound.
The artist said she wanted to convey a sense of “the hunter, hunted… a bird of prey caught, and trussed”. And that is exactly what she does.
A Sea Harrier that was decommissioned after it crash-landed during training in Yeovilton, this powerful weapon of war was acquired by Wirral-born Fiona Banner, who says she “courted it” through contacts she has made over the years, exploring her fascination with jets.
It is one that began after a childhood encounter. As a seven-year-old, when she was out walking with her family in the Welsh hills, suddenly a Harrier jump jet ripped through the skies above, shattering the silence. “Out of nowhere, BANG!” she recalls.
Fast forward all these years, and she has caught one, and painted feathers and eyes on the dull, grey metal.
“Suddenly a Harrier jump jet ripped through the skies above, shattering the silence. ‘Out of nowhere, BANG!’ recalls Fiona Banner.”
She is shy about revealing how much it cost, or how she cultivated her contacts, but says it took a huge crew of people, including engineers, to help her transform these machines into works of art.
Down the hall, is another of her acquisitions, a Sepecat Jaguar that saw action in the first Gulf war. This jet has been transformed into a pristine and impossibly shiny work of art, the intention here to heighten how glamorous and seductive these weapons of war can be, even to those repelled by their function.
After being transfixed by that first jet, Fiona Banner says she began sketching and building models of them, and after art school her early work explored portrayals of war in films.
Calling the results “wordscapes”, she transcribed the dialogue and plot of movies, including The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now, onto huge blocks on paper.
Naturally she created a wordscape for Top Gun, but also one for the 1991 cult film Point Break, by the now Oscar-winning filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow.
“Fiona Banner and Kathryn Bigelow have both had creative success working with materials and subject matter that are primarily male passions: boys’ toys.”
The story of surfers who rob banks to fund their passion for chasing and then riding great waves, it is shot with breathtaking beauty and much loved by legions of men of a certain age.
It was also made nearly two decades before Bigelow would sweep the Academy Awards with The Hurt Locker.
And meeting Fiona Banner, I immediately draw parallels between the British artist and the American filmmaker. Both have had creative success working with materials and subject matter that are primarily male passions: boys’ toys taken by confident, creative women and transformed into something powerful but understated.
The Hurt Locker, which followed bomb disposal teams in Iraq, had the same beautifully observed cinematography as Point Break, and was an understated war film, delivered with little fanfare, no blaring soundtrack, upping the ante.
When I ask Fiona Banner about this, she says that yes, she has always been interested in Bigelow’s work, that in fact the two have spoken, and wondered if they might be able to work on a project together.
The Oscar hullabaloo may distract Bigelow for a while, as projects flood in, but the two women may well collaborate. And that would be fascinating.
For me Banner’s work has a filmic quality. In fact, while she may have intended these jets to resemble caught birds of prey, for me the Harrier suspended from the ceiling brought to mind another deadly hunter.
The dull, grey metal of the jet seems the exact texture and colour of a huge shark, and at first glimpse, conjured up that scene from Jaws when they think they have caught a great white and triumphantly haul it up by its tail on the dock.
Folly indeed, as the real killer was still out there. But for the purposes of the scene, the hunter hunted.