Press kit
rk:
w Yo
e
N
n
i
m
s
i
rreal
u
S
d
n
a
l
l
rne
ay...
R
n
a
Joseph Co
M
,
t
s
p, Ern
m
a
h
c
u
D
,
s - Lyon
í
t
r
A
Dal
e
n
i
F
0, 2014
m of
Museu
bruary 1
e
F
–
3
1
0
2
8,
October 1
Joseph Cornell and Surrealism
in New York: Dalí, Duchamp, Ernst,
Man Ray...
October 18, 2013 – February 10, 2014
Museum of Fine Arts - Lyon
The exhibition Joseph Cornell and Surrealism in New York focuses on the work
of Cornell, the American pioneer of collage, montage, and assemblage art, in the
decades of the 1930s and the 1940s. These years span both Cornell’s emergence
and maturation as an artist and the heyday of surrealism in the United States.
Surrealism launched Cornell as an exhibiting artist. It was also the cultural milieu
that shaped and molded him through the first half of his career. The exhibition
presents key works by Cornell as well as images by other major artists, such as
Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Man Ray, to evoke that surrealist
environment in New York and to trace Cornell’s course through it. This will be the
first exhibition focusing on Cornell to be hosted by a French museum since the
touring exhibition from the Museum of Modern Art in New York visited the Musée
d’Art Moderne in Paris in 1981.
While Cornell has been the subject of large monographic exhibitions in the USA,
Joseph Cornell and Surrealism in New York is the first to place this great American
master within the larger international context of Surrealism. More specifically, it
centers on surrealism’s catalyzing effect on Cornell’s art. Surrealism activated the
development of Cornell’s signature working method: collage and the related
procedures of montage, construction, and assemblage. And it was to surrealism
that Cornell owed his basic conception of the visual image as the product of poetic
juxtaposition. With this in mind, the exhibition will explore the diversity and
interconnectedness of Cornell’s artistic practices and formats. These include, of
course, the two-and three-dimensional formats for which he is best known: collages,
found object pieces, and shadow box constructions containing found objects. The
other major strands of Cornell’s achievement will also receive in-depth examination:
the artist’s engagement with photography, his ground-breaking work in collage
film, and the open-ended and non-linear archives of printed materials that he
called his «explorations.» Juxtapositions with key works by other artists—Marcel
Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Mina Loy, René Magritte, Lee Miller,
Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, among others-will elucidate his activity in the context of
surrealism.
The conjunction of Cornell with New York Surrealism sets up a number of key themes
for the exhibition. One such theme is Cornell as urban archivist, who explores a
specific milieu, the city and its outlying suburbs, and turns his discoveries into art.
Another is the encounter between the home-grown and the foreign. Here the issue
is not only Cornell’s association with members of the community of French exiles
and expatriates living in New York, but also very importantly, if on a more abstract
level, his attachment to (and use of) manifold aspects of European culture.
The most fundamental theme for the exhibition, however, is what aligned Cornell
most profoundly with Surrealism: a great sensitivity expressed and explored on
the level of artistic practice to the phenomenon of the “curiosity,” meaning objects
(natural and fabricated, familiar and fantastic) which do not by normal convention
belong to the realm of the fine arts, and an intense exploration of the devices,
technologies, and instruments (frequently amazing or spectacular in their own
right) that organize, preserve, and convey such things to the eye.
Exhibition curators
Sylvie RAMOND, conservateur en chef du patrimoine, director of the Museum of
Fine Arts of Lyon
Matthew AFFRON, Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, Philadelphia
Museum of Art
This international loan exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon
in collaboration with the Fralin Museum of Art, University of Virginia. It will be
accompanied by a multi-authored exhibition catalogue containing new scholarship
on Cornell. Symposia will be held in France at the Institut National d’Histoire de
l’Art (INHA) on February 7 and 8 2014; and in the United States in the spring of 2014,
as a collaboration between the Fralin Museum of Art and the Virginia Museum of
Fine Arts in Richmond.
The cultural cooperation network FRAME (French Regional American Museum
Exchange) supports the organization of the exhibition Joseph Cornell and
Surrealism in New York at the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon. The exhibition will be
presented at the Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville,
Virginia (USA), in spring 2014. The exhibition is organized with support from the
Terra Foundation for American Art.
This exhibition is recognized as being of « Intérêt national » by the « Ministère de
la Culture et de la Communication / Direction générale des patrimoines / Service
des musées de France ».
As such it benefits exceptionally from financial support from the French State.
JOSEPH CORNELL AND COLLAGE
Joseph Cornell was profoundly struck by
Max Ernst’s parable-collage La Femme
100 Têtes (fig. 1), and he produced his
first ‘montages’ in 1932 and showed
them to Julien Levy a few days after the
opening of his gallery (fig. 2). Inspired by
black and white 19th century engravings,
these works were subsequently presented
at the Surrealism exhibition at the
gallery (fig. 3). His encounters with Man
Ray and Lee Miller the following year led
him to stray from his initial inspiration
and modify his techniques by including
details of photographs in his works and
adding color to them. Although the future
would see the ‘box’ format become his
principal means of expression he would
use collage on numerous occasions,
most notably in order to satisfy the
demands of various revues and magazines.
Fig. 1
Max Ernst
La mer de jubilation
1929
Collage for La Femme 100 têtes
Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne
- Centre Georges Pompidou
Fig. 2
Joseph Cornell
Untitled (Schooner)
1931
Collage of photomechanical reproductions on paperboard
mounted to paperboard
Washington, Hirshhorn Museum
Fig. 3
Joseph Cornell
Original Collage for Surréalisme Exhibition
catalogue, New York, Julien Levy Gallery
1932
Private collection
Cornell contributed to a special edition of View in January 1943 entitled ‘Americana
Fantastica’ which featured one of his collages on the cover. It evoked life in
America and the marvels to be seen there (fig. 4). He would rarely use this creative
format again until the 1950s, at a time when he lacked the material he needed
for his boxes and the declining health of his mother and brother had obliged him
to abandon his urban wanderings. He concentrated all his energies on collages
and abandoned engraving and contemporary photographs, preferring instead to
use elements from color magazines such as Arizona Highways, National Geographic Magazine and Art News. Cornell confirmed his renewed interest in the visual
poetry of collage and he acknowledged the determining impact that collage had
had upon his life when, a few years before his death, he wrote the following words
in his diary:
“collage” = life
eidetic image – an image (experienced especially by children) which revives a
previous optical impression with the clearness of hallucination.
Fig. 4
Joseph Cornell
Cover for View , « Americana Fantastica » issue
Janvier 1943
Houston, The Menil Collection
JOSEPH CORNELL AND BOXES
Although Joseph Cornell made his artistic debut with collages, he would become a
major figure thanks to his box creations. His interest in this format began in the 1920s
whilst he was working as a travelling salesman for William Whitman’s textile company
on Madison Square. He was often to be seen in the shops and boutiques on 25th and
32nd streets, and it was in one of them that he first discovered the small boxes which he
used as presentation cases for his objects. In autumn 1932, Julien Levy organized an
exhibition at which Cornell exhibited his ‘shadow boxes’ – small boxes within which he
placed freely-moving objects such as thimbles attached to needles, porcelain angels,
and tiny silver balls placed within glass bell jars. These works resembled compass
boxes. He continued in this vein in 1936 with Soap Bubble Set, which was the first box
to feature the style which would establish his reputation (fig. 5).
Fig. 5
Joseph Cornell
Untitled (Soap Bubble Set)
1936
Box
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Exposed that same year at the New York Museum of Modern Art in the Fantastic
Art, Dada and Surrealism exhibition, Soap Bubble Set marked a turning point
in Cornell’s art. It contained certain motifs such as maps of celestial bodies that
would become recurrent themes in his work (fig. 6). He also reused a certain number
of other images and objects in what was to become a series of works. Fascinated
at first by major female artists such as dancers and actresses, to whom he paid
magnificent homage, he radically modified his work in the mid-1940s and
the presentation of his ‘Aviaries’ at the Egan Gallery heralded a new style of box in
which his passion for literary detail disappeared, giving way to abstract arrangements
of shapes, lines and volumes. Although Cornell went on to construct new box series in
this style, such as Dovecots and Hotels, he eventually began to concentrate mainly
on ways of perfecting older box styles before progressively abandoning the box
format altogether in order to work on other means of expression.
Fig. 6
Joseph Cornell
Untitled n°3, Soap Bubble Set
vers 1955
Box
Strasbourg, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain
JOSEPH CORNELL AND CINEMA
Joseph Cornell discovered the Seventh Art early on in a cinema in Nayack, and
in the 1920s he began to compile a collection of numerous short films by George
Méliès and Louis Feuillade. He discovered the surrealist films of Luis Bunuel and
Salvador Dali – L’Age d’or and Un chien andalou – in 1933. This avant-garde style
of film inspired him to write the scenario for Monsieur Phot, a film which tells the
story of a photographer who finds himself confronted with the power of his
imagination. He began making his own films in 1936 and used the collage method
of splicing pieces of film together to create Rose Hobart (fig.7), a film which consists
of a series of short scenes taken from Georges Melford’s adventure film, East of
Borneo and from a documentary film on an eclipse. His cinematic activities were
accompanied by the creation of boxes in honor of famous actresses such as Hedy
Lamarr, Jennifer Jones, Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe. Cornell concentrated
on films during the 1950s, and would use scenes shot by other film makers. He
collaborated in this way with Larry Jordan, Rudy Buckhardt and Stan Brakhage.
Looking back on his work with Cornell on Centuries of June, Brakhage said that
“It would be an exaggeration to say that he ‘directed’ my filming, but nevertheless
his presence and constant suggestions - often made by simply raising his hand or
even his eyebrows - made it his film entirely. In 1963, the first grouped projection of
Joseph Cornell’s films took place in artists’ premises belonging to Walter de Maria
and Robert Whitman. It bore witness to the importance of his work in cinema, as
was illustrated a few years later when he donated some of his films to the Anthology
Film Archives.
Fig. 7
Joseph Cornell
Film stills Rose Hobart
1936
New York, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
JOSEPH CORNELL AND SURREALISM
The surrealist movement declared its philosophical principles in Paris in 1924 with
the publication of André Breton’s Manifeste du Surrealisme, a document which
defined the movement as being “Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which
one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other
manner, the actual functioning of thought.”. Among the brilliant painters and poets
who joined the Surrealist movement under the aegis of Breton were Paul Elouard,
René Crevel, Max Ernst, André Masson and Joan Miro. They were joined shortly
thereafter by Yves Tanguy and Hans Arp. A number of surrealists left their own
countries and moved to America at the beginning of the Second World War and
they would get together at the Julien Levy Gallery, thus confirming the international
status of the movement as well as the gallery’s future role as a pivotal element
of the rise of the Surrealist movement in New York. It was there that Cornell met
many artists, including Max Ernst, Salvador Dali (fig. 8), Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp
(fig. 9), Lee Miller (fig. 10), Dorothy Tanning, and the group of neo-romantics
represented by Pavel Tchelitchew.
Fig. 8
Salvador Dali
Forgotten Horizon
1936
Oil paint on mahogany
Londres, Tate Modern
Fig. 9
Marcel Duchamp
Boîte-en-valise
1941-1966
Strasbourg, Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain
This close contact with surrealists led Cornell to be associated with the movement,
most notably in the wake of the Fantastic art, Dada and Surrealism exhibition. Upset
with having been given this label, he wrote to the museum’s Director, Alfred H. Barr Jr.
to say that:“I do not share in the subconscious and dream theories of the surrealists.
While fervently admiring much of their work, I have never been an official surrealist,
and I believe that surrealism has healthier possibilities than have been developed.”.
Whereas the Dadaists and Surrealists explored the bizarre, the irrational and the
unexpected, Cornell decided to develop a more poetic aspect of happenstance and
dreams. He appealed for “white magic” to oppose the darker tendencies of Surrealism
and established himself as a satellite of this constellation of artists. This arrangement
gave him what he needed to surpass their ideology and open up new forms of
expression which presaged both pop art and minimalist art.
Fig. 10
Lee Miller
Portrait of Joseph Cornell (from the series Twelve
Needles Dancing on the Point of an Angel)
1932-1933
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Donald Windham, Wadsworth Atheneum
Museum of Art, inv. 2000.39.1
Joseph Cornell AND musiC
In the 1920s, Joseph Cornell began collecting various revues and other works
which stimulated his interest in music. He would often go to the Metropolitan Opera
House and he acquired recordings of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel an Erik Satie.
Fascinated by their work, he created a number of collages in their honor which he
called Dedications. When he changed his working format and began making boxes,
musicians became his theme of predilection. He created Symphony in C in memory
of Paul Dukas, Untitled (Sati and Ravel) and The Caliph of BagDAD, named after the
opera by François-Adrien Boieldieu. Cornwell appreciated opera, as can be seen in
his diary entries, one of which was written less than a year before he died. In it, he
wrote that he would never forget the arias of The Barber of Seville, which he had
first heard during his youth. Another example of his interest in opera came in the
form of Maria, a pamphlet he wrote in 1954, and he published another pamphlet
the following year entitled Bel Canto Pet. Respectively dedicated to the opera singers
Maria Malibran Garcia and Julia Grisi, these two pamphlets would be the only ones
that Cornell wrote.
JOSEPH CORNELL AND DANCE
In 1933, the 25 Years of Russian Ballet exhibition at the Julian Levy Gallery
presented Serge Lifar’s collection of mock-ups of stage decor, costumes and
drawings by artists including Juan Gris, Max Ernst and Pavel Tchelitchew.
Cornell met Tchelitchew a few years later and was thereby introduced to the milieu
of dance. He would later meet Lincoln Kirstein, the co-founder of the Archives
de la Dance and would draw on these experiences, which he complemented by
reading a number of lectures by Théophile Gauthier and researching material in
other areas of his life. Put together, this wide-ranging research would enable him
to express his passion for dance. It was within this context that, deeply influenced
by a lithographic portrait of Fanny Cerrito by Josef Kriehuber a century earlier,
Cornell dedicated his first portfolio of documents and artifacts, produced in 1940,
to the character of Ondine, whose part had been sung by Cerrito in the ballet of the
same name. He went on to create ‘bouquets of homage’ using collages, boxes and
magazine covers which he dedicated to major romantic ballerinas such as Marie
Taglioni, for whom he constructed Taglioni’s Jewel Casket. This box, a jewelry box
containing glass cubes, illustrated a tale according to which Taglioni, whose carriage
had been stopped by bandits, performed a dance on an animal pelt that had been
placed on the snowy ground. Although his attention was mainly focused on
renowned dancers of romantic ballet, Cornell also dedicated some of his works to
contemporary dancers such as Tamara Toumanove and Renée ‘Zizi’ Jeanmaire, a
dancer he had once met.
LOANING MUSEUMS
• Germany, Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
• United States, Charlottesville (Virginia), The Fralin Museum of Art at the University
of Virginia
• United States, East Lansing, Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum
• United States, Hartford (Connecticut), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
• United States, Houston, The Menil Collection
• United States, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
• United States, New York, Museum of Modern Art
• United States, Palm Beach, Norton Museum
• United States, San Antonio, McNay Art Museum
• United States, Washington, Hirshhorn Museum
• France, Grenoble, Museum of Grenoble
• France, Lyon, Contemporary Art Museum
• France, Marseille, Cantini Museum
• France, Nantes, Fine Arts Museum
• France, Nice, Modern and Contemporary Art Museum
• France, Paris, Museum of Modern Art of Paris
• France, Paris, National Museum of Modern Art - Centre Georges Pompidou
• France, Rennes, Fine Arts Museum
• France, Rouen, Fine Arts Museum
• France, Strasbourg, Modern and Contemporary Art Museum
• Italy, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
• Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Kunstmuseum
• United Kingdom, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland
• United Kingdom, London, Penrose Foundation
• United Kingdom, London, Tate Modern
ConfErence
Thursday September 26th at 6pm in Paris
With Sylvie Ramond, Director and Curator of the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts and
Patrick Mauriés, writer, editor, literary critic and collector.
Venue: Terra Foundation for American Art Europe
29 rue des Pyramides
75001 Paris, France
T: +33 (0)1 43 20 82 65
www.terraamericanart.org/europe
Founded in 1978, the Terra Foundation for American Art
is dedicated to fostering exploration, understanding, and
enjoyment of the visual arts of the United States for national
and international audiences. Recognizing the importance of experiencing original
works of art, the foundation provides opportunities for interaction and study,
beginning with the presentation and growth of its own art collection in Chicago.
To further cross-cultural dialogue on American art, the foundation supports and
collaborates on innovative exhibitions, research, and educational programs.
Grant Program
The grant program offers support for American art exhibitions and academic
programs worldwide. In addition, it supports public and school programs in Chicago.
Over recent years, the foundation has provided approximately $45 million for some
450 exhibitions and scholarly programs in over thirty countries, including France,
Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, China, and
Japan.
Art Collection
The Terra Foundation’s collection of American art comprises more than 700 paintings,
works on paper, and sculptures dating from the late eighteenth century through
1945 by such artists as John Singleton Copley, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt,
Winslow Homer, Marsden Hartley, and Edward Hopper. The foundation works to
ensure its collection is accessible: it lends artworks to exhibitions worldwide;
creates focused shows of its collection for public exhibition; and maintains a
comprehensive database of the collection on its website.
Partnerships
The foundation collaborates with institutions worldwide to create new and exciting
ways to connect people with American art. For example, long-term partnerships
with the Musée du Louvre in Paris and The National Gallery in London have introduced
American art to European audiences, as well as placed works of historical art from
the United States in dialogue with two pre-eminent collections. Ongoing collaborations with these institutions will enable presentations of American art over the
next several years. Additionally, a partnership with the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Foundation rendered the first survey of historical American art to travel to Beijing,
Shanghai, Moscow, and Bilbao. Lastly, a recent collaboration with the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art introduced historical American art to South Korea.
Paris Academic Center & Research Library
In 2009 the Terra Foundation opened its Paris Center, a resource that supports the
foundation’s grant programs in Europe, fosters international connections, and provides
access to resources on American art. The Paris Center offers monthly programs on
current topics on the art and visual culture of the United States. It also houses the
only research library in Europe devoted exclusively to historical American art, with
approximately 9,000 titles covering subjects and artists up to 1980.
For further information on these and other Terra Foundation activities and
opportunities for support, please visit terraamericanart.org or contact:
Francesca Rose in Paris ([email protected] or +33 1 43 20 32 06) or Charles
Mutscheller in Chicago ([email protected] or +1 312 654 2259)
practical information
ticket price
Exhibition: 9€ / 6€ / free
Exhibition + museum’s collection: 12€ / 7€ / 6€ / free
Commented visit: Entrance ticket + 3€ / free
Opening hours
Daily except Tuesdays and holidays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Fridays from 10:30 a.m.
to 6 p.m.
 Visuals available for the press
Thank you to contact us to get access to our press codes.
press contact
Sylvaine Manuel de Condinguy
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon / 20, place des Terreaux / 69001 Lyon.
[email protected]
T: +33 (0)4 72 10 41 15
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS - LYON
20 place des Terreaux / 69001 Lyon
T: +33 (0)4 72 10 17 40
www.mba-lyon.fr
Crédits
Fig. 1 : © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Jacques
Fig 2 : © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 / The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation - Photo © 2013
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Photography by Cathy Carver
Fig. 3, 4 : © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 / The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation © Camerarts, New York
Fig. 5 : © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 / The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / Photo ©
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY/ Scala, Florence
Fig. 6 : © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 / The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation © Photo Musées
de Strasbourg
Fig. 7 : © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 / The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / Photo © The
Museum of Modern Art
Fig. 8 : © Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation / ADAGP, Paris, 2013 - Photo © Tate, London 2013
Fig. 9 : © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 / Succession Marcel Duchamp © Photo Musées de Strasbourg, A. Plisson
Fig. 10 : © Lee Miller Archives, England 2013. All rights reserved © ADAGP, Paris, 2013 - The Joseph
and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation - Photo © Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art / Art
Resource, NY/ Scala, Florence
Cette exposition est reconnue d’intérêt
national par le Ministère de la culture et de
la communication / Direction des musées
de France. Elle bénéficie à ce titre d’un
soutien financier exceptionnel de l’État.
Joseph Cornell, Sans titre n°3, Soap bubble set, musées de Strasbourg © Photo musées de Strabourg © The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / ADAGP, Paris 2012
MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DE LYON
20 place des Terreaux / 69001 Lyon
Tél. : +33 (0)4 72 10 17 40
www.mba-lyon.fr