Cornell scoured Manhattan’s bookstores and thrift shops for dusty treasures that he rearranged and reanimated as intimate box constructions. Here, a stately European palace, bathed in rosy pink and covered in snow, emerges from the backdrop of a winter forest. Cornell conveys a sense of theater in miniature with the sparkling blue proscenium through which we view the magical fantasy world. It evokes fairy tales and child’s play, but the hermetically sealed space also suggests an unnatural stillness — an eerie disquietude that belies its enchanting facade.
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