The first of dozens of boxes Joseph Cornell made in honor of famous ballerinas, Taglioni’s Jewel Casket (year) pays homage to Marie Taglioni, an acclaimed 19th-century Italian dancer. According to legend, Taglioni kept an imitation ice cube in her jewelry box to commemorate dancing in the snow at the behest of a Russian highwayman (a traveling thief). The box is infused with erotic undertones — both in the tactile nature of the materials (glass cubes, velvet, and a rhinestone necklace purchased at a Woolworth’s dime store in New York) and in the incident itself, in which Taglioni reportedly performed on an animal skin placed across the snowy road. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Joseph Cornell, Taglioni’s Jewel Casket→
The iconic Bocca Sofa (also unofficially known an the Lips Sofa) was created by the radical Italian design team Studio 65 for the famed Italian manufacturers Gufram back in 1972. Based on an original design by none other than Surrealist Salvador Dali, who took Mae West as his inspiration, Studio 65 looked to that other iconic beauty, Marilyn Monroe, to create this famous sofa. Both Studio 65 and Gufram are known for being places where the art world and design world collided, and their kaleidoscopic fusion of pop art, conceptual art and modernist design reached their zenith with this piece. Continue reading Eye On Design: Bocca Sofa→
One of Surrealism’s most important patrons, Edward James, was a willing collaborator whose sense of play initiated commissions for his homes from such artists as Salvador Dali and Leonora Carrington. James was impressed with the work of Rene Magritte, which was displayed in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition in London, so he invited the artist to paint three decorative canvases for the ballroom of his London home. Magritte painted On The Threshold of Liberty during his stay there in 1937, as the centerpiece of the three works. Originally set behind two-way mirrors, the works would become visible when James changed the lighting, provoking what he called “a profound sensation.”
Salvador Dalí utilized his theory of “nuclear mysticism,” a fusion of Catholicism, mathematics, and science, to create this unusual interpretation of Christ’s crucifixion. Levitating before a hypercube — a geometric, multidimensional form — Christ’s body is healthy, athletic, and bears no signs of torture; the crown of thorns and nails are missing. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) By Salvador Dali→
Elastic Shapes with Dali-esque shadows litter Tanguy’s landscape, like the paradoxical meeting of unrelated materials in the painting’s title. According to the poet, John Ashbery, the self-taught artist chose titles arbitrarily, sometimes asking friends for suggestions.
Painted in 1940, The Satin Tuning Fork is part of the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
