Style: Light Boxes
Address: 945 Madison Ave New York, NY 10021
Website: http://whitney.org/
Products Information / model numbers: Light Boxes
Special Remarks: Joseph Cornell Light Boxes
Cornell's most characteristic art works were boxed assemblages created
from found objects. These are simple boxes, usually fronted with a glass
pane, in which he arranged surprising collections of photographs or materials, in a way that combines the formal austerity of constructivism with the lively fantasy of Surrealism. Many of his boxes, such as the famous Medici Slot Machine boxes, are interactive and are meant to be handled.
Cornell could create poetry from the commonplace. Unlike Schwitters,
however, he was fascinated not by refuse, garbage, and the discarded,
but by fragments of once beautiful and precious objects he found on his
frequent trips to the bookshops and thrift stores of New York. His boxes relied on the Surrealist technique of irrational juxtaposition, and on the evocation of nostalgia, for their appeal. Cornell never regarded himself as a Surrealist;
although he admired the work and technique of Surrealists like Max Ernst and Rene Magritte, he disavowed the Surrealists' "black magic," claiming that he only
wished to make white magic with his art. Cornell's fame as the leading
American "Surrealist" allowed him to befriend several members of the
Surrealist movement when they settled in the USA during the Second World War. Later he was claimed as a herald of pop art and installation art.
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