The balloon goes up
How to display a flying dragon, from Johann Kestler, Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis, p. 247
The “art box” as a form has an established pedigree, with precursors in the Cabinet of Curiosities of the 17th Century. Examples being those made by Ole Worm and Athanasius Kircher, whose collections of strangely juxtaposed artefacts were studies of the prescientific material and philosophical understanding of their day.
Interestingly, Kircher is the inspiration for a quirky blog, which recently posted items about anthropodermic bibliopegy (or the practice of binding books in human skin), albino koalas and Esperanto horror films.
In the 20th Century, the “art box” was most often concerned with the psyche and identity, reflecting the powerful role psychology has had in our understanding of experience since Freud.
Duchamp’s concept of the “Ready Made” haunts many artists’ boxes. His Green Box (1934), a compilation of papers, images, and handwritten notes on the Large Glass, while referencing art practice, as do all choices of form, also embodies contradiction and multiple meaning; dilemmas which are at the heart of individual psychology.
For Joseph Cornell (who assisted Duchamp in the manufacture of some of his boîtes), the box became the central form and process of his entire oeuvre. Cornell’s work often incorporated surreal dream-like juxtapositions.
Robert Rauschenberg is another artist who found the box a useful form and his approach, as with the use of materials by Duchamp and Cornell, is also echoed in some of the works in Re-VIEW. Rauchenberg used the box to give personal significance to a jumble of common objects and materials. He described them as an “unpacking” of materials in contrast with Cornell’s delicate “packing” of objects in his box constructions.
The works in Re-VIEW could be said to be “unpackings” of inner worlds; worlds of memory, nostalgia, desire and existential emotion. Congratulations to all who contributed.
Elsewhere:
"Processual Minimalism” - a colony of forest ants constructing a hill. By Klaus Mosettig. via Tom Moody
Ant angst in a box.
Interestingly, Kircher is the inspiration for a quirky blog, which recently posted items about anthropodermic bibliopegy (or the practice of binding books in human skin), albino koalas and Esperanto horror films.
In the 20th Century, the “art box” was most often concerned with the psyche and identity, reflecting the powerful role psychology has had in our understanding of experience since Freud.
Duchamp’s concept of the “Ready Made” haunts many artists’ boxes. His Green Box (1934), a compilation of papers, images, and handwritten notes on the Large Glass, while referencing art practice, as do all choices of form, also embodies contradiction and multiple meaning; dilemmas which are at the heart of individual psychology.
For Joseph Cornell (who assisted Duchamp in the manufacture of some of his boîtes), the box became the central form and process of his entire oeuvre. Cornell’s work often incorporated surreal dream-like juxtapositions.
Robert Rauschenberg is another artist who found the box a useful form and his approach, as with the use of materials by Duchamp and Cornell, is also echoed in some of the works in Re-VIEW. Rauchenberg used the box to give personal significance to a jumble of common objects and materials. He described them as an “unpacking” of materials in contrast with Cornell’s delicate “packing” of objects in his box constructions.
The works in Re-VIEW could be said to be “unpackings” of inner worlds; worlds of memory, nostalgia, desire and existential emotion. Congratulations to all who contributed.
Elsewhere:
"Processual Minimalism” - a colony of forest ants constructing a hill. By Klaus Mosettig. via Tom Moody
Ant angst in a box.
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