Cornell was a lifelong collector, accumulating film reels from flea markets, junk shops, or the depths of dumpster bins, which he used as material for his own surrealist film collages. To make By Night with Torch and Spear, Cornell incorporated tinted film copies of industrial, nature, and ethnographic documentaries and manipulated some of the footage so that it appears in the negative, upside-down, or backward. Shots of steelworkers, camel caravans, caterpillars, and Native Americans flash before the viewer in wayward arrangements. The content of the film reflects the kinds of material in wide circulation at the time, inflected by Cornell’s visual flair and personal fascinations.
2025
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The Art of Assemblage
Gallery 408Everyday objects, popular consumer products, and other nontraditional materials had become, Seitz wrote, “the language for impatient, hypercritical, and anarchistic young artists,” who sought to create an art that—in its subject matter, materials, and making—was closely intertwined with life.
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