Cathy Lomax takes her
Cornell with a side order of Stezaker and Bracewell.
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| Still from Angel (Joseph Cornell and Rudy Burckhardt, 1953) |
I find Joseph Cornell’s fan-like obsessions with film and
ballet stars and his collecting and ordering of found objects fascinating and
inspiring. I haven’t seen much of his work in the flesh, so a retrospective at
the Royal Academy was an exciting prospect. Before going in to see the
exhibition I listened to an ‘in conversation’ between the writer Michael
Bracewell, a Cornell dissenter who finds his work ‘morbid and dotty’ and the
artist John Stezaker, a Cornell admirer.