SAAM :: Interact

Interact

Click on the image above to view the QTVR of Joseph Cornell's Wonderland. Use your cursor to move around the room, the shift key to zoom in, and the control key to zoom out. (Quicktime 10.2 MB)

Joseph Cornell's Wonderland

Our special exhibition Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination offers a unique opportunity to explore the workshop of the artist best known for his box constructions. The section titled "Wonderland" displays Cornell's source materials, box fragments, and unfinished works from his home in Flushing, New York. Use this QTVR to pan around and zoom in on our re-creation of Cornell's studio.

For about fifty years, this inveterate collector surrounded himself with approximately 4,000 books and magazines, hundreds of record albums, thousands of pages of diaries and correspondence, and countless examples of two- and three-dimensional ephemera. Believing that "everything could be used in a lifetime," Cornell gathered his materials as the conceptual and physical resources for his boxes, collages, and films. The basement studio was also home to his "spare parts department." Shelves filled with cookie tins, industrial packing cartons, and boxes held traditional art supplies and an array of objects, from clay soap bubble pipes to elements that he prefabricated in bulk for his box constructions.

All of the objects displayed in "Wonderland" are part of the Joseph Cornell Study Center of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

If you have comments or suggestions about this page please email us. The address is saaminteract@si.edu.

[ American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Joseph Cornell ]