Sunday, January 15, 2006

Stella Nets the Moon!


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Joseph Cornell's "Cassiopeia 1"

Cornell, Joseph (1903-72). American sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage.


He had no formal training in art and his most characteristic works are his highly distinctive `boxes'. These are simple boxes, usually glass-fronted, in which he arranged surprising collections of photographs or Victorian bric-à-brac in a way that has been said to combine the formal austerity of Constructivism with the lively fantasy of Surrealism. Like Kurt Schwitters he could create poetry from the commonplace. Unlike Schwitters, however, he was fascinated not by refuse, garbage, and the discarded, but by fragments of once beautiful and precious objects, relying on the Surrealist technique of irrational juxtaposition and on the evocation of nostalgia for his appeal (he befriended several members of the Surrealist movement who settled in the USA during the Second World War). Cornell also painted and made Surrealist films.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Assemblage (A san blazh`)

1.A sculptural technique or organizing or composing into a unified whole a group of unrelated objects, fragmentary or discarded objects. 2. a work of art produced by this technique.
Collage and Assemblage art covers a wide gamut from modern art to pop art to abstract art, it can show up in mail art, avant garde art, constructivist art and often is the preferred medium of the revolutionary artist through the juxtaposition of elements to create a jarring or shocking effect.