Utopia Parkway: The Life And Work Of Joseph Cornell [Paperback]

Deborah Solomon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 2004

Back in Print No artist ever led a stranger life than Joseph Cornell, the self-taught American genius prized for his disquieting shadow boxes, who stands at the intersection of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. Legends about Cornell abound--as the shy hermit, the devoted family caretaker, the artistic innocent--but never before Utopia Parkway has he been presented for what he was: a brilliant, relentlessly serious artist whose stature has now reached monumental proportions. Cornell was haunted by dreams and visions, yet the site of his imaginings couldn't have been more ordinary: a small house he shared with his mother and invalid brother in Queens, New York. In its cluttered basement, he spent his nights arranging photographs, cut-outs, and other humble disjecta into some of the most romantic works to exist in three dimensions. Cornell was no recluse, however: admired by successive generations of vanguard artists, he formed friendships with figures as diverse as Duchamp, de Kooning, and Warhol, and had romantically charged encounters with Susan Sontag and Yoko Ono--not to mention unrequited crushes on countless shop girls and waitresses. All this he recorded compulsively in a diary that, along with his shadow boxes, forms one of the oddest and most affecting records ever made of a life. It is from such documents, and from a decade of sustained attention to Cornell, that Deborah Solomon has fashioned the definitive biography of one of America's most powerful and unusual modern artists.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Joseph Cornell (1903-72) lived in Queens with a domineering mother and severely handicapped brother while creating unique, haunting art: boxes filled with lovingly assembled objects and printed images. But this sympathetic biography demonstrates that he was more than an eccentric recluse, chronicling his friendships with other artists and his immersion in the avant-garde movements of his time. Art critic Deborah Solomon spikes her astute judgments with humor--noting her subject's fondness for epistolary relationships that spared him the unease of physical contact, she comments, "Cornell would have been great on the Internet." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Solomon, art critic for the Wall Street Journal, has written the very first biography of Joseph Cornell (1903^-72), one of the world's most elusive artists, and it is a work of compelling perception and glorious inclusiveness. A self-taught artist uncomfortable with traditional mediums, Cornell made provocative collages and reliquary-like boxes, unprecedented creations inspired by his fascination with the quiet poetics of found objects and recycled images, French literature, the magic of movies and dance, and a highly romanticized notion of innocence. Cornell is usually characterized as an isolated genius constructing his beautiful assemblages in the cluttered basement of a deceptively ordinary house on Utopia Parkway in Flushing, New York, where he lived with his shrewish, widowed mother and sweet-natured, handicapped brother. This image of Cornell as an "art monk" is accurate to a point, but--and this is the main thrust of Solomon's eye-opening interpretation--he was profoundly affected by the art world percolating intensely just a train ride away in Manhattan and forged mutually inspiring associations with Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Andy Warhol. Solomon also analyzes Cornell's troubled sexuality, his work as a devout Christian Scientist, and his highly influential experimental films. The quiet storm of Cornell's art arose from a conflict of universal significance: the clash between his "spiritual aspirations and sensual compulsions." Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: MFA Publications (November 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0878466843
• ISBN-13: 978-0878466849
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #320,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Examining the life and influences of an enigmatic artist, April 10, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Utopia Parkway: The Life And Work Of Joseph Cornell (Paperback)

Deborah Solomon's biography of artist Joseph Cornell in Utopia Parkway: The Life And Work Of Joseph Cornell, joins other outstanding titles in the MFA's 'artWorks' series but stands well independently, providing a reprint of a 1977 original examining the life and influences of an enigmatic American artist. Analysis blends with personal insight to probe the influences of man prized for his disquieting shadow boxes and his influence on Surrealism, Pop and Abstract expressionism alike. Yes, there have been other coverages - but few offer the depth and authority of an art critic's research talents.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Immensely grateful but waiting for the next, May 19, 2000

By 

Eddie Watkins (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (Hardcover)

As an antidote to my seams-bursting curiosity about Cornell, this book deserves a rating off the measly 5 star scale and into the realm of splendiferous constellations. To you Deborah Solomon I am sincerely grateful. But upon rereading Utopia Parkway seems rather thin, and at times, unfortunately, nearly patronizing. I don't doubt her respect for Cornell, but occasionally she treats him as too much of a curiosity, as if he was an eccentric she's putting into a box. Perhaps she simply had trouble understanding him. And of course she committed the unpardonable sin, and anti-Cornellian faux pas, within her pages of referring to pigeons as ugly grey scavengers. They are, as every reader of this book should know, winged urban enchanters.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars why the psychobable?, July 31, 2000

By 

Susan Lockrey - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell (Hardcover)

like all the other reviewers i have an immense interest in cornell. however i found deborah solomon's constant psychological asides both banal and ultimately dulling. every page has some fatuous and often risible so-called apercu. i wanted a biography, not some fanciful and very dated exercise in psychoanalysis. shame cos there is a lot of enjoyable fact offered. cornell's own selected diary and letters published under the title The Theatre of the Mind, is the only authority on his thinking as far as i am concerned. this biographical arrogance of reducing an artist's life to a sequence of supposedly transparent motivations is so passe surely.