newcritics

Unexpectedly, the new retrospective of the artist Joseph Cornell (click for online gallery of Cornell’s work) — said to be the first in more than 26 years — questions the wisdom of mounting a retrospective of this artist’s work at all.

Originating at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and traveling later this year to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the show has been curated by Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, chief curator of the PEM and a Jospeh Cornell expert. The works on display cover Cornell’s efforts in film, collage, and his famous box constructions.

With the exception of the films projected on a gallery wall, the scale of these works is very small, sometimes in the extreme. (The work pictured above is typical in appearance and size.) They are displayed behind glass in two types of cases spread over a number of rooms: tall cases in which the boxes and collages are lined up at about eye level, and lower displays allowing us to look down on — and sometimes into — a selection of Cornell artifacts.

Throughout the galleries the light is extremely low; a museum employee told me that was to protect the work from fading. Indeed, one construction had been lined in blue silk (seen in a digital reconstruction) now faded nearly white. With the preponderance of paper in all of the work, and odd techniques such as ink washes on glass, the precaution is certainly warranted, even as it creates a hushed atmosphere in contrast to the often playful and even humorous content of Cornell’s work.

And despite the Cracker Jacks prize elements of the show, the exhibit overall feels huge. As described by Dan L. Monroe, director of the PEM, it “includes 180 of Cornell’s finest box constructions, collages, films, dossiers, and graphic designs. More than 30 works are being shown for the first time.”

Therein lies the problem. It’s a big show of small objects. It is examples of craft at the scale of the artist’s hands that are now sealed off and preserved behind glass, untouchable. It’s work obsessed with stage lights, stars in the sky as well as movie stars, and birds in flight that has been unfortunately shrouded in gloom. It’s 180 instances of contradiction.

And, no offense to the artist, but it’s repetitious. It’s too much of a good thing. I began to think that Cornell’s work would be far, far better served if a few of his pieces were included in a group show or thematic overview. I think I’d enjoy the work more coming across it as one might find treasure in a junk shop.

There are pleasures to be had here, certainly. One box is full of little toy lobsters in tutus (Cornell sending up his own love of ballet). A box entitled An Image for Two Emil(y)ies from 1954 has an austere, formal beauty. (It’s a box broken into an array of slots, three up and four across, each filled with the same objects: a blue glass marble and, over that, a miniature globe for a hurricane lamp.) One wall is devoted to recreating what might be a table or bench from Cornell’s studio, strewn with his tools and raw materials. (The objects displayed did indeed come from the studio in his longtime home on Utopia Parkway in Queens, NY.)

I learned a few things: that Cornell was a Christian Scientist; that he was caretaker to a disabled brother; that he did commercial work as well, mostly for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar; that he knew and collaborated with Marcel Duchamp (though it is not a surprise to see his affiliation with the surrealists).

Yet, the exhibit cannot overcome the problems inherent in showing this work. Perhaps the “dossiers” illustrate this best. These are collections of related materials Cornell would place into specially constructed boxes, as in the dossier devoted to Victorian-era ballerinas, or even just pile into manila file folders, as in his files from time spent volunteering at a bird sanctuary. These are almost impossible to appreciate, especially the latter. It’s useless trying to make sense of what you’re seeing.

An irony, which I imagine Cornell might find amusing, is that his work is better explored in a DVD-ROM that comes with the book Joseph Cornell: Shadowplay Eterniday. Here, one can open virtual Cornell boxes, pick up and move around tiny bottles from tiny Cornell apothecaries, and shuffle through even more Cornell items than are displayed at the PEM.

Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination
At the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Mass, through August 19

Note: There’s a stop-gap “catalog” of sorts available for the show but the full exhibition catalog will not appear until late this year as the show makes its way to San Francisco.