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02-18-2007, 08:40 AM
Joseph Cornell - Navigating the Imagination
Yesterday we went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC to see the Joseph Cornell exhibition. http://www.jerzeedevil.com/gallery/files/1/0/8/1/cornellmedici.jpg
The exhibition contains over 200 pieces - his finest boxes, collages, objects, dossiers, films and graphic designs. It's the first Cornell retrospective in over 25 years and the work is displayed beautifully. If I had any reservations at all, the overall lighting was a bit dim for me, but some individual pieces were lit from below with tiny spotlights pinpointing exquisite details. For example, in the piece above, one of the 6 Medici boxes in the show, the lights were positioned to illuminate details of the tiny side faces without decreasing attention to the main figure. Many Cornell's boxes are constructed with glass doors, sometimes blue glass, so good lighting is essential.
Cornell's work deals with nostalgia, and dreams about artists, dancers or even literary works. His imagery is etheral but linear and he revisits his basic themes of astronomy (time and space) dancing, motion, and travel.
Joseph Cornell spent most of his life in one house in Brooklyn, NY, but his art ranged this world and into the cosmos.
Has anyone seen this show or other examples of Cornell's work?
Yesterday we went to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC to see the Joseph Cornell exhibition. http://www.jerzeedevil.com/gallery/files/1/0/8/1/cornellmedici.jpg
The exhibition contains over 200 pieces - his finest boxes, collages, objects, dossiers, films and graphic designs. It's the first Cornell retrospective in over 25 years and the work is displayed beautifully. If I had any reservations at all, the overall lighting was a bit dim for me, but some individual pieces were lit from below with tiny spotlights pinpointing exquisite details. For example, in the piece above, one of the 6 Medici boxes in the show, the lights were positioned to illuminate details of the tiny side faces without decreasing attention to the main figure. Many Cornell's boxes are constructed with glass doors, sometimes blue glass, so good lighting is essential.
Cornell's work deals with nostalgia, and dreams about artists, dancers or even literary works. His imagery is etheral but linear and he revisits his basic themes of astronomy (time and space) dancing, motion, and travel.
Joseph Cornell spent most of his life in one house in Brooklyn, NY, but his art ranged this world and into the cosmos.
Has anyone seen this show or other examples of Cornell's work?