201 plastic Airfix models, twine, 21 cardboard boxes
Dimensions variable


An early fascination with fighter planes burgeoned into an essential facet of Fiona Banner’s artistic practice. Larger than life, these objects of war are awful and majestic, sentimental and strange, phallic in form and penetrative in function.

In Parade, 201 plastic models of fighter planes hung from the ceiling are imbued with a sense of urgency, masculinity, and seduction, existing somewhere between weaponry and ornamentation. Dramatically reduced from the immense dimensions of their original grandeur, the artist has assembled the models, yet left them devoid of the colors or markings, such as roundels, chevrons, and fin flashes, that might offer insight into their origin. As a departure from previous works, which often utilized text, Parade mutely conveys violent heroic narratives through harmless toys. The stripped surfaces are sleek and austere, frozen in flight, converting them into a fragile, decorative force. In this way, Banner is able to distort and trivialize the weaponry’s fatal reality through the illusion of control. –Alicia Reuter


*1966 in Liverpool, United Kingdom | Living and working in London, United Kingdom