Joseph Cornell “Untitled (Hotel Eden)”
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“Beauty should be shared for it enhances our joys.
To explore its mystery is to venture towards the sublime.”
-Joseph Cornell
After I moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 2000, and spent some time absorbing the local art scene, I noticed something very different than what I was used to. I had come from Richmond, Virginia, where at the time painting was the predominant art form. In Phoenix I saw lots of assemblage. Assemblage Art is like making three dimensional collages, creating composed groupings out of just about any object imaginable. I’ve become a huge fan of this technique, which can be utilized to create such poetry: visual fragments shored against our ruins.
On thinking of assemblage art I think of Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972), the undisputed master of the genre. Looking at the mysterious little worlds he evoked out of dime store trinkets, you would never imagine the seemingly mundane life the artist lived. He spent his entire adult existence in a tiny suburban home in Flushing, New York, which he shared with his mother and invalid brother, for as long as they lived. His workshop was in the basement. Here he created the shadow boxes that described his romantic dreams about legendary ballerinas, faded Continental hotels, contemplative aviaries, and the celestial heavens themselves. This painfully shy self taught artist was accepted as a colleague by the Surrealists during their War World II exile in New York City. They recognized true vision when they encountered it.
Joseph Cornell “Tilly Losch”
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Joseph Cornell “Untitled (Celestial Navigation)”
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Joseph Cornell “Naples”
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Joseph Cornell “Observatory – Corona Borealis Casement”
I found a site with some great images of Cornell’s basement studio, check it out! https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/112137878/posts/414
True story:
I first read about Cornell in one of William Gibson’s novels.
A couple years later I was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, and was given an assignment involving cigar boxes. I did several along the lines of what I’d read about in the novel, not realizing that Cornell was a real person.
I explained this to my instructor, and she noted that Cornell was real, and that the Institute had several of his boxes on display.
That’s great! You never know where inspiration will come from.
Absolutely love this! I have been sharing unique artists over at my Sunday Evening Art Gallery blog, and this is just the kind of wonderful art that I love discovering. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks. Your sites look like fun, followed, thanks!
Very cool. As to Petro’s experience, there is nothing more disheartening than thinking you are in pristine territory and then finding someone else’s footprints. What you have to keep in mind is those footprints may soon stop and be continued by your own. Inspiration is a strange critter.
Find a fragment of the inspiration, expand on it, make it your own
If you haven’t already, you might want to look up the work of Louise Nevelson. She was also an artist known for assemblage. Very different from Cornell, but really interesting stuff to look at.
Good call, I love her work as well
He made one of my favorite movies, Rose Hobart. It’s very much an assemblage too as he recut a print of the Hollywood B movie East of Borneo removing the narrative content to create a romantic dream/homage to the starring actress. According to the liner notes on the DVD, Salvador Dali was present at a screening and after it finished, he kicked the projector over in a fit of rage saying he had been thinking about making a move like that and it was as if Cornell had read his mind. That’s some serious cred right there.
Cool, I’ve seen that movie, it’s on Youtube!