Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was an American artist and sculptor who helped pioneer and later became the most famous practitioner of assemblage art. His works are often regarded as avant-garde and highly influenced by Surrealism (although he never considered himself an orthodox Surrealist). He is most famous for his “boxes,” which are currently and numerously displayed at SFMOMA.

Untitled (Tilly Losch), 1935-38

Cornell created his assemblages by carefully arranging found objects and framing them in boxes. These boxes are relatively simple constructions, usually made of wood, and often glass-fronted. Like the Surrealist arts that likely influenced him, his art is comprised of fantastic and often seemingly incongruous components which he recombines and juxtaposes into odd yet surprisingly harmonious reconfigurations.

Although his boxes are relatively small in size (ranging anywhere from 2” to 25” in length or width), they nonetheless are imaginatively vast. Even though the overall content or meaning is often mysterious, due to the forms and textures within each frame, one finds oneself compelled to examine the curios inside. Indeed, the materials he employed were extensive in scope, including: maps, marbles, mirrors, feathers, seashells, wallpaper, music boxes, newspaper and magazine texts, etc.

Untitled (Soap Bubble Set), 1936

Perhaps it is the very nature of the box itself which draws one in to look. Like “real” boxes, Cornell’s boxes must also be “opened” to discover what is inside. Indeed, akin to non-art boxes, one must close in to ascertain what is contained. Unlike orthodox sculpture, which is 3-dimensional, his boxes only allow for one angle of approach—the front. Because of this narrowing of the viewers’ gaze, one’s gaze intensifies, magnifies, and is intimately drawn in.

Another aspect of Cornell’s work that differentiates it from orthodox sculpture is its nature and status as radically found. In fact, Cornell does not so much create as recreate. Through his ingenious reworkings and rearrangements of everyday objects and given materials, he interrogates the nostalgia embedded in the material culture of West. By denuding found objects of their past significations, he not only challenges us to reexamine our sentimental attachments to material culture, but forces us to critically rethink what constitutes art itself. Also, because his art (or building) supplies are ready-made, he undermines the metaphysics of muse; that is, instead of creating something out of nothing, he creates something out of something else.

Untitled (Cockatoo with Watch Faces), 1949

According to several critics, Cornell was influenced by the philosophy of Christian Science (which holds that the reality of being and existence is ultimately spiritual, not physical), which might explain the presence of birds in so many of his works. Although there is no critical consensus to the meaning behind Cornell’s birds, several interpretations seem likely, among them: the caged bird as symbolic of the spirit encaged in matter; the bird as symbolic of potential freedom and perhaps potential freedom of spirit over matter; etc.

No review can do justice to intellectual and aesthetic complexity of Cornell’s boxes. One must see these assemblages for oneself to appreciate his aesthetic value.

Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination will be on view at SF MoMA through January 06, 2008.

Collage Party

Paul Butler's Collage Party has traveled extensively throughout Canada, and the US where it has served as a kind of litmus test of wide-open participation. Its premise is simple, come hang out, have a beer, bring some materials, or use what's here, sit down and get to work. It intentionally occupies the informal margins of art practice, where the seeds for future projects and collaborations are grown. A Winnipeg native and founder of the Other Gallery, Butler has implicated various friends and volunteers in the production of past parties including Dearraindrop, Jason McLean and many others. Most recently the party has landed at Creative Growth in Oakland, and Butler, Michael Dumontier of the Royal Art Lodge, and Richard Boulet are here for two weeks working with clients of one of the world's foremost art programs for developmentally disabled adults.

While living in Canada last year I had a chance to see the aftermath of an early iteration of the Collage Party at the Alberta College of Art + Design's Illingworth Kerr Gallery in Calgary. A maelstrom of tape, string, color and sculpture populating a floor covered in bits of paper, it was clear that the act of collage was not limited to the page. Flipping through the images of past parties on the other gallery website, the collaging frenzy has included architectures, body coverings and performance props. It's also served as raw material for Butler's own art practice, where he develops his quietly considerate manipulations of content culled from the detritus of material culture.

Creative Growth has gained a reputation for supporting incredibly prolific and singularly talented artists like Judith Scott, Aurie Ramirez and William Scott. Since the mid 70s CG has pioneered a model for working with scores of these visionaries on art related projects, and has also coordinated collaborations with various Bay Area artists and curators. The Collage Party is a perfect parallel to the ongoing experimentation internal to Creative Growth, and last Friday the invitation was extended to gallery visitors. Concurrent with the event last week, independent filmmaker Guy Maddin projected a selection of short films, topping off the Winnipeg takeover of a little corner of Oakland. Next Thursday the culmination of their relentless production will be on view and available for purchase (proceeds support Creative Growth).