Joseph Cornell's Dreams

For 20 years Exact Change have been publishing interesting works by surrealists, avant-garde writers and artists, expressionists, cubists, dada poets and others. The covers alone (30 of which are collected on the back page of this summer's issue of Bookforum) are a tantalizing selection of early 20th-century painting, collage, photography and illustration; titles range from Unica Zurn, Denton Welch and Kurt Schwitters to 'first surrealist' Lautreamont, Fernando Pessoa, Louis Aragon, Antonin Artaud and Gerard de Nerval and include the written works of Pablo Picasso, Leonora Carrington, Georgio de Chirico, Morton Feldman, and John Cage, to name a few. Joseph Cornell's Dreams is the fruit of editor Catherine Corman's extensive reading in Cornell's diaries, currently housed in the Smithsonian Archive. The title is precise - 116 pages of this 145-page volume are directly transcribed dreams, dating from 1944 through 1972; some are just two or three lines long, so it is a quick read. There is very little in the way of editorial interpretation, which is probably a blessing, just a modest guide to themes, and some very interesting appendices detailing the influence of Pascal and Descartes on Cornell's 'philosophy of dreaming'. The dreams themselves are a bit of a mixed bag, though read together they are completely disarming, and if you love Cornell's work you will want to read them. Some are enchanting, and the seeds of his work are plainly visible in all; many feature just one or two arrested or nearly motionless images; there are lots of windows and doors, or rooms or boxes, antiques or old-fashioned objects, books of old photographs, birds, toys and dolls. Here's a selection of some of the best;

5/11/47 - window for icebox + seeing in basement of neighbors house 2 pet cockatoos in cage dimly illuminated (house dark)

9/28/51 - visit to museum where curator showed me a large carved wooden horse the cover of which came off to reveal inside a porcelain set of spice jars ...

9/13/52 - an old-fashioned wagon from which a middle-aged woman in a blue and black printed blouse was in the act of tumbling from the frame of the door into the sea after a pair of scissors ...

10/31/61 - pulling into a station + noting the interior of a large old-fashioned school - large glass case with stuffed birds or animals - old-fashioned desks - no people ... by the shore of a body of water - strangely wonderful (or vice versa) atmosphere - a group of older girls + some baby lambs - something about the girls picking up the baby lambs ...

11/18/62 - cooking custard with skin - dropping it - retrieved by a young man from the floor ... in the dream girls were in their stone uniforms

12/18/65 - dreaming out of windows ...

3/28/68 - elderly, revered woman poet being entertained in her home ... juggling rubber balls

5/14/68 - "CAPRICE" in large black letters on a board in a kind of impromptu open-air booth for checking wraps, etc ...

11/17/68 - river or large body water fishes trapped pointing straight up ...

1/21/71 - 2 old rocks one most curious shape 2 tiny ceramic animals came tumbling out as though the ages had hewn them out a shelter ...

2/29/72 - digging (with hands) into white sands to unearth a bunch of rusty fish-hooks ...