Customer Reviews

Joseph Cornell

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you seen the work of Joseph Cornell before and loved it then you will find much to learn from in this book. But, I'm not sure readers encountering Cornell for the first time through this book will be won over. The detailed text by McShine is thorough, covering his life, his surrealist box constructions, collages and cinema. A huge amount of his work is reproduced, and an extensive bibliography are included. However, most of the plates are in black and white, with only a handful of colour photographs of his work. Moreover, the photographs of his work lack depth, so the three-dimensional tactile qualities of his enigmatic box constructions are lost. Perhaps these qualities would be difficult to convey in any photographs. So, it is not the perfect Joseph Cornell book. But the writing is interesting and I still loved looking at the less-than-ideal reproductions of his work.

I've been a fan of Joseph Cornell ever since I discovered him at the Chicago Art Institute. But, like many of you, I thought all he did was shadowboxes. But, oh no. The rich illustrations showed me treatments, themes, and directions I had no idea the artist had ever worked in. The surprises were rather pleasant.

Contents include the editor's introduction and four significant essays: "the Trancendental Surrealism of JC" by Dawn Ades; "JC: Mechanic of the Ineffable" by a frenziedly allusive Carter Ratcliffe, which among other things places JC in an American context, amongst Thoreau, Dickinson and the Puritans (!); "The Cinematic Gaze of JC" by P. Adams Sitney, a perceptive and authoritative survey of Cornell's films; and "JC: A Biography" by Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. These texts are heavily illustrated with unique supporting visual material. The plates of Cornell's work are unremarkable but there is the usual impeccable and thorough MOMA bibliography and checklist.

I have read a biography on Joseph Cornell, but this book I bought because of the focus on his art work, which I love. Vast amount of photos showing the diversity and breadth of his boxes and collages. Published in conjunction with the retrospective exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, 1980. A must have for assemblage artists.

There are only a handful of Joseph Cornell books and if you're a fan, you'll probably end up buying all of them. This one is a bit thin (especially for the original price) but does cover not only the boxes (that I, as others here, had discovered at the Art Institute of Chicago) but his other varied works as well. Film isn't covered as well as the visual arts though.