Boxing Wonder: Joseph Cornell and the Tradition of the Curiosity Cabinet

Dr. Kirsten Hoving, Charles A. Dana Professor of Art History, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Middlebury College

The assemblage boxes of the American artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) have been frequently compared to curiosity cabinets of the so-called Age of Discovery that gave rise to the modern museum.  This lecture will examine the validity of these comparisons by placing Cornell’s artistic practice within contexts of collecting and containing, from seventeenth-century Wunderkammern to early twentieth-century natural history displays.  Convergences with the collecting and exhibiting strategies of  Surrealist artists and writers, especially André Breton, will offer another framework for Cornell’s fascination with wonder.