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Rose Castle

Here are two imagined realms of Cornell's mind. For the box above, which is only 12 inches high, a building has been cut out of an old engraving and mounted on wood. Twigs, spattered with white paint, tower over the palace and are reflected in a wintry sky. On the base below the courtly procession, Cornell has sprinkled tinsel snow. The palace windows are mirrored. In the 1950s Cornell constructed a series of boxes named after French provincial hotels, in which he pasted down portions of hotel advertisements. Although he has never traveled abroad, Cornell captures the bareness of a strange hotel room in the 19-inch-high box at right. At the same time, he evokes the immense emptiness of the night sky with the figure symbolizing Auriga, one of the brightest of the winter constellations. The box might suggest the restlessness of all the guests who have stayed in the room and of the stars which pass through the sky - a feeling of universal transience.

Hôtel du Nord