Don't Count this One: Utopia Parkway the Life and Work of Joseph Cornell

The is a review of a book that instead of not being able to put down is a book that I must admit I cannot bring myself to pick up.  It is already several weeks overdue at the library so I feel I must write something and bring the damn thing back and pay the fine tomorrow.

Now I do not fancy myself to be an art critic and my limited undergraduate electives in American Art History (and my subsequent not accepting my offer for a graduate program at U Delaware/Winterthur) certainly does not qualify me as understanding any American artist after 1900.  I never heard of Joseph Cornell and took out the book primarily because of my silly six degrees of separation meandering when I saw it was Utopia Parkway (heavens prevail I actually never have to go to Queens).

So what did Joseph Cornell do?  He made boxes of trinkets with some surreal or esoteric theme, like a tribute to female movie stars or ballerinas, chock block full of pieces of tutus and sequins and old playbills.  Apparently back in the days of Dali and Duchamp, he was regarded as a valid if somewhat lesser star, NYC gallery shows and all that.  But mostly in the smaller, back rooms where is boxes where shown almost as trinkets and appropriate holiday gifts.

Cornell was an underemployed adult, living in Queens with his mother, scavenging remnants and old books to make his three D collages in the basement.  His work comes across as a miniaturist, a collector and because the author Deborah Solomon writes what appears to be the seminal biography of a little remembered artist, I made me question the merit of my own hobbies:  why do I obsess in perfect rooms for my multitude of doll houses, especially when I am the only female within miles of our family members?  Why did I spend years needle pointing both sides of pillows?  I know I am a crafter and do not intend to display my efforts (even though Monday I am bringing the only needlepoint I made ever to win a first place to hang in the new office space) (hey, office art is pretty awful anyway and I have not budget for amenities).

But to validate as higher are a medium that never moved beyond a niche genre in an almost 400 page book with another 25 pages of bibliographic notes was too much of a time investment for little return.  I made a valiant effort to get to page 178.  Why does the library keep calling me for its return ... who else could possible have put it on hold?

I have to juxtapose Utopia Parkway against Interlock because I cannot expand my mental concept of art to include highly personal trinket boxes and political corruption flow charts.  Call me a bore, call me someone who does not get modern art.  I don't.  I just had a flashback to Hammagrael and I going to the Skidmore Tang museum this summer to look at 1980s hard edge acrylics.  Now, I admit I took a class in hard edge acrylics and anyone with a roll of blue painters' tape can try it out themselves.  But these newer medium do not inspire, do not reveal lofty human questions.

Sorry, readers.  I will search for another "C."