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Art Trends by GORDON BROWN

A Visit with Joseph Cornell
Joseph Cornell, who is having an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum this month, disclaims any desire for publicity and is the most difficult of all artists to interview. A mutual friend, yayoi Kusama, brought me to his house. Otherwise I would never have got there.
The house turned out to be a modest middle-class residence, exactly like its neighbors, with a lawn, flowers, an enclosed front porch and a garage. In Cornell's case, there is no car in the garage, only art works, storm windows and other items that one would expect a suburbanite to store.
Cornell, gaunt, clean-shaven and aesthetic-looking, answered our known immediately as he was expecting us. He is sixty-three years old and a bachelor.
Inside, the house is pleasantly old fashioned with its Victorian furniture, old photographs on display on shelves and walls, a 19th-century oil painting of sail boats on the Hudson and an ancient silver yachting trophy on the mantelpiece. It is a house much liver in over the years, that now shelters a solitary occupant. One gets the impression that Cornell gets along well with ordinary people and does not often find himself in the company of professional artists. However, he mentioned having met Rothko, Motherwell and Ad Reinhardt. He likes his neighbors, goes to church, and has a housekeeper who comes in regularly.
When not working, as is often the case of late since he is tired of making boxes, Cornell likes to listen to stereo-his taste is classical. There is an abundance of books around the house, but apparently nothing by Freud, who had an influence on other Surrealists. He has read Marshall McLuhan and thinks he makes some good points, but doesn't agree with everything he says.
A large drawer in a wall cabinet is stuffed full of clippings from newspapers, especially the Christian Science Monitor, which he will eventually get around to reading. Stowed away in the basement is a collection of old films, including George Meliés and Charlie Chaplin.
Obviously, the most interesting objects in Cornell's house are his famous boxes and collages. They lean against the walls in the basement, garage and various rooms of the first and second floors. Most often, these pictures are modestly placed with their faces against the wall. It is essential that his frames harmonize with his works. For this reason, Cornell finishes all his frames himself although he does not build them. He started in painting during the depression after leaving the garment business. His first one-man show was held at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1932. He is not active now, he says, although he is making a few collages.
In the basement where Cornell works, we looked at an unusual collage, made from ads, showing a glistening modern kitchen and a cute child opening an open door. What she sees inside is the blue sky with white clouds. It is like discovering the universe by way of the kitchen stove. It was really an example of Pop art at its best. Not Pop, but Camp, Dada, and Surrealism predominated in every other work. Cornell was quite close to Marcel Duchamp at one time, but pointed out that he was never associated with the Paris group of Surrealists. In fact he particularly mentioned the Cedar Bar as a place where a definite group met and said he had always avoided this type of association.
Finally, Cornell told us that he might spend the rest of his life making presents for other people. Suiting the action to the word, he gave a charming little nickel box, containing cut-outs from his late brother's exhibition catalogue. To Kusama he gave a college made from a record album of Beethoven.