Collecting Enchanted Relics of Life’s Simple Pleasures

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) had a delicate touch that enabled him to transform unremarkable odds and ends into intimate talismans of magical moments.

At Manny Silverman Gallery, the reclusive artist’s capacity for enchantment comes through very clearly in two dozen box constructions (mostly made in the 1950s) and half as many collages (all dating from the 1960s).

Lucky souvenirs, prizes from games at penny arcades, fanciful maps of the heavens and magazine advertisements for hotels with French names regularly appear in Cornell’s homemade boxes. Like miniature theatrical stages, protected from the outside world by thin window panes, these dreamy dioramas also contain poetic arrangements of children’s building blocks, balls, aperitif glasses, golden rings and images of angels, mermaids, owls and butterflies.

Seen together, Cornell’s marvelous works seem to marry the goals of an unlicensed pharmacist to those of a traveling magician. Apothecary jars, amulets, mirrors and hidden passageways attest to his conviction that relief from physical suffering and wide-eyed wonder before life’s simple mysteries are two sides of the same coin.

Although Cornell’s tiny stages are often described as nostalgic, even melancholic, this exhibition suggests the opposite. Fresh, unsentimental and loaded with the potential to spark happy reveries, its individual pieces never evoke a sense of irretrievable loss.

Unlike much assemblage art, Cornell’s found objects are not scarred by the patina of irreparable damage. And unlike the loud pronouncements of classic Surrealism, which often intend to shock, his charmed art traffics in quiet insights. These open-ended works flirt with good luck and serendipity, as they present ample evidence that small pleasures, stolen from the cacophonous onslaught of modern life, can make all the difference in the world.

To assume that such little, hard-won victories are only relics of the past is jaded and pretentious--and contrary to the spirit of Cornell’s constructions. Each piece distills wonder with seemingly effortless ease, making this experience available to anyone willing to suspend disbelief, even for a moment.

* Manny Silverman Gallery, 619 N. Almont Drive, (310) 659-8256, through Nov. 9. Closed Sundays and Mondays.