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Joseph Cornell, 'Untitled (Cocatoo with Watch Faces)'
 
Joseph Cornell retrospective
Thinking inside the box
In Joseph Cornell's box construction “Untitled (Cockatoo With Watch Faces)” the cut-out of a white bird surrounded by a grid of white watch faces suggests the soul hemmed in by the empirical facts of time and space. The weathered-looking box enhances a sense of agedness and earthbound existence, while the bird suggests the possibility of imaginative flight into a realm of ecstatic eternity.
(Photo: Michael Tropea. The Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection / VAGA )
 
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