Work by Joseph Cornell 1933

Lee Miller made this photograph called 'Work by Joseph Cornell', but we don’t know when. It’s a small black and white image of one of Cornell’s box constructions. Cornell’s work has this funny habit of taking things out of context, messing with how we see them. He liked to pick up bits and bobs, rearrange them, and then *bam*, you have a whole new story. It's like he's saying, 'Hey, look at this ordinary thing in a totally bonkers way!' In Miller's photo, the doll's head floats inside a glass, surrounded by delicate threads, it makes you wonder what stories the threads could tell if they could talk, right? There's a kind of dreamlike quality that reminds me of Man Ray, another artist who messed with photography and surrealism. But where Man Ray could be kind of slick, Cornell is all about the rough edges. This photograph is a beautiful little puzzle that invites you to make up your own mind.