Joseph Cornell, known for his little boxes, was associated with the surrealist group between the wars. This is an interesting circumstance, because nothing in his past made it obvious he'd fall in with an avant garde. In fact he was a self-taught artist and more than a little shy. So he came into it honestly. His art just grew out of who he was.
Sunday, June 18, 2017
What's in the box
Joseph Cornell, known for his little boxes, was associated with the surrealist group between the wars. This is an interesting circumstance, because nothing in his past made it obvious he'd fall in with an avant garde. In fact he was a self-taught artist and more than a little shy. So he came into it honestly. His art just grew out of who he was.
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2 comments:
Thank you for writing about an artist I'd never heard of before, one whose work I will surely pay more attention to in future. The video was great to watch and after I did that I went on to discover more about him. I was happy to read a fine article about him in the NYT.
Long ago when we lived in Montreal, Inger and I once spent an afternoon at a gallery that had a show by an artist who made collages from what must have been an incredible collection of unique objects. He made shadow boxes as well. The pieces were very different from Joseph Cornell's work, but your post today reminded me of them.
I'd learned about him a few years before. While he was the toast of the surrealists he also got into a fight with Salvador Dali because of a short film he made that Dali thought he stole from his unconscious. Well, as you can probably tell from that sentence, Sal was a bit off his rocker that day, for whatever reason, so maybe "got into a fight" isn't the right phrase. Interesting guy, though.
That sounds like a fascinating artist you and Inger met in Montreal. I wonder if any of his work still stands or has been recorded.
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