The Royal Academy of Arts
On the 17th of September we went to The Royal Academy of Arts to see the work of American artist, Joseph Cornell, who is best known for his 'Shadow Boxes' and the sketchbooks of Chris Wilkinson who designs large architectural structures.
Joseph Cornell, born in 1903 and dying in 1972, was born on
Christmas Eve in New York and he remains one of the most
influential American artists of the twentieth century. Cornell
was self taught and lived most of his life with his mother and his younger brother. Cornell would craft in his basement or on his kitchen table and began creating the Shadow Boxes there, these are what he is most best known for. Cornell rarely ever left New York as this is the place he knew and adored the most. People labelled Cornell as a timid yet eccentric man, but these mythologized versions are not real and these statements are false.
The Cornell exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts shows us 80 of Cornell's most incredible Shadow Boxes, assemblages, films and collages. This including a lot of private work and a numerous amount which had not been seen outside of the USA. Although Cornell did not complete formal education, he was incredibly well read and spoken. Cornell was interested in theatre, ballet, the cinema and opera. Some say this perfectly reflects his eccentric self and the way he expresses himself through various things. In the 1930's, Cornell began working on his shadow boxes. Glass fronted box constructions contained intimately scaled arrangements of found objects and paper ephemera, assembled in a sort of three dimensional collage. People label Cornell's work as Surrealism, however he tried best to move away from this label and tried saying that he is 'simply himself' and follows no movement nor does he take inspiration from other artists in that movement. That is why he did not want to be labelled as a surrealist as he believed he was unique and most people knew that and told him that he is 'his own movement/style'.
Chris Wilkinson is best known for his sketches of different architectural structures. Wilkinson's exhibition showed rows of his sketchbooks, showing off his sketches and ideas, as well as notes, of famous landmarks and buildings. I do not have very much information on Wilkinson's work however I did notice that he used a lot of watercolor in bright colours dulled down. From his sketchbooks you can clearly tell he he is an architect as well as an artist. I liked seeing his work as it was particularly nice seeing actual drawings and paintings on paper IN A SKETCHBOOK.
Out of the two, I preferred Cornell's work as I think me and him are quite alike. We both seem to have similar ideas. He likes mishmashed art involving everything random with a lot of dark colours.
