Inspired by Ulaca's comment regarding C.S. Lewis' medievalist view of space, I am taking my thoughts of space a bit further and highlighting several cases that I have been interested in over the years. I like this blog format very much because it allows me to purge all the bits of knowledge and interests that I have acquired over the years, which previously were committed by my architectural journal with (unrealized) hopes of being somehow included in a future project.
Today I introduce my pages about Joseph Cornell. In August, 2004 I was visiting the Johnson Museum of Art, which was exhibiting several Cornell boxes. The timing was perfect because in our studio we were involved with rudimentary exercises of space and time. My studies eventually led away from the boxes and toward a freakish discovery and investigation of an unknown ancestor who lived in a town one lake over from where I was living at the time, who shared my name and birthday...but I marked Cornell for further study.
Joseph Cornell had a way of measuring time though his involuntary (Proustian) memories, and crafting these boxes to record the memories before they faded. In the words of Kynaston McShine (Senior Curator of the Museum of Modern Art): "Perhaps it was Cornell's measuring of time by his own perceptions that allowed him to create an infinity of atmospheres within a small space--one of the most endearing qualities of his work." Peering into each box, I was transported to another world, or at least an essence of my own past, where each placed object in the box transcended time.
Nohra Corredor wrote an essay about Cornell's views of time and space which provide a better and more eloquent understanding than I can manage at this time. In the essay she explained that Cornell's art is both of temporal and non-temporal experience: It reminds us of the Greek idea about Time...."In Homer, chronos refers to periods of empty time and is distinguished from periods of activity which are thoughts of as days (ephemeros). By the time of Pindar this verbal distinction had disappeared, but a tendency to think of Time as an alternation between contraries' active and inactive, persisted. In the classical period this idea underwent further development so that in the language of philosophy, Time was an oscillation of vitality between two contrasted poles" (Frankel, H. 1955).
The Smithsonian American Art Museum attempts the difficult task of categorizing Cornell's boxes into the following compartments:
Dream Machines: Toys and machines share a spirit of ingenuity that inspires new ways of operating in the world, whether for playful or useful purposes. When Cornell became an artist during the economically challenged 1930s, interest ran high in toys, games, and movies as sources of entertainment and in practical and futuristic machines as symbols of progress. Like many Americans during the Depression, Cornell was also nostalgic for earlier, better times. His works into the 1940s often evoke his late Victorian childhood as he reinterpreted parlor games and miniature theaters that had been designed as educational toys to develop hand-eye coordination or to teach elementary scientific principles.
Nature's Theater: New York City had such an impact on Cornell that it is easy to underestimate his love of nature. The Hudson River valley, Adirondack Mountains, New England's and Long Island's rural countryside and coastline, Manhattan's parks, and his modest backyard in Flushing, New York-all provided glimpses of "this ethereal magic of simplicity in the commonest aspects of Nature."
Geographies of the Heavens: Nature's theater extended into the heavens as Cornell considered man's relationship to the land, sea, and air in his efforts to understand the cosmos. His references to the sun, moon, planets, and stars and to the history and technology of astronomy and space exploration all relate to celestial navigation as a long-standing method used by sailors, including his Dutch and American ancestors. Although not a sailor, Cornell was an avid stargazer at home and at the Hayden Planetarium, and celestial navigation became his primary metaphor for extended travel across time and space and between the natural and spiritual realms. Cornell called upon "geographies of the heavens" for his interpretation of "observatories," "night songs," and "night voyages." This tradition of star maps first appeared in Europe during the 1400s to illustrate information discovered in astronomical observatories. The maps incorporate hand-colored line drawings and engravings, representations of constellations as mythological figures and animals, and diagrams of the heavens. Cornell also embraced other subjects that have inspired charts and diagrams-trade winds, solar and lunar eclipses, and latitudinal and longitudinal views of Earth. From his earliest collages to his last boxes and films, Cornell's goal was to create a touchstone for exploring the unknown.
Bouquets of Homage: Cornell's interests in science, history, and the arts were often driven by his fascination with historical and contemporary people, whether famous or obscure. His own desire for privacy did not prevent him from researching their lives and accomplishments as sources of inspiration, comparison, and even consolation. Men recur in his pantheon of creative kindred spirits, while women dominate his efforts to pay homage to the fleeting nature of fame, beauty, and the act of performing.
Crystal Cages: Typically, boxes are made to be opened and closed, to reveal and protect their contents. In Cornell's constructions, glass panes achieve both goals to create a dynamic, transparent relationship between interior and exterior. Peering through glass to inspect the contents and composition of his boxes and collages suggests using a telescope to bring the distant or mysterious closer. The presence of mirrors complicates the experience. As they expand the sense of space, confuse the real and the reflected, and include the viewer in their imagery, mirrors evoke a range of meanings, especially Cornell's interest in the mind as a mirror of the soul and dreams.
Chambers of Time: Cornell's romance with time was complicated. He did not date most of his works because he had little use for chronology in the midst of pursuing "cross currents, ramifications, allusions, etc." Yet he constantly clocked what he was doing day and night in his diaries, suggesting not just the tyranny of time but also his awareness of life as a continuum based on the daily. Time's measures, phases, and patterns loom in his work, whether in the direct use of clock parts and imagery or the suggestive presence of sand.
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