Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Joseph Cornell

Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination
Lynda Roscoe Hartigan (Peabody Essex Museum, 2007)

A religious inclination - attended in 1920s at an East Village church a series of experimental services that drew on Hinduism, Buddhism and Baha'i; involved with Christian Scientist church.

'His use of the words "transfiguration", "religious", and "transcendency" suggests that he made an early distinction between aestheticism and spirituality and also considered spirituality on a par with experience as a significant resource for art and the perception of beauty."

Began with collages then moved into the 3-dimensional with his boxes - shadow boxes, lidded, with opening doors, compartmentalised. Hiding and revealing.

Juxtaposed images from different sources - old books, prints, daguerrotypes, magazines - and objects found and made.

Images drawn from worlds of science, astronomy, home movies, puppetry, ballet, birds, old shops. . . 

A love of spectacle - ' a sense of people engaged in wondrous performances'
Invoking strange worlds. Surrealist humour. Poetic, lyrical.

Joseph Cornell Object,1940 (construction 22,8 x 35,3 x 8,5 ) avec cette inscription :  "Les abeilles ont attaqué le bleu céleste pâle.")
Les abeilles ont attaque le bleu celeste pale, 1940




No comments:

Post a Comment