Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell Book

I gave it four stars because I learned a lot and it was pleasant to read.

basically, cornell was a weirdo who was extremely constricted by guilt and fear and I feel like if he had lived in iowa, we wouldn't have even heard of him. because he was near new york at the time when he was, he had an entrance into the art world.

I guess I had a very different idea of what his boxes were. I thought of them more as sort of memory box assemblages. I mean, I didn't think about them much. I don't know that I've ever seen one in person. (and apparently that's the only way to properly appreciate them because they don't reproduce well in photographs and you miss things like the inset mirrors). a lot of them were a lot more spare than I imagined them.

but good for cornell, ol' kind of creepy impotent ballet-fixated christian scientist mama's boy social misfit cornell, he never learned to draw but he became an influential and important artist. it was definitely worth reading to get that little piece of art history.