L'esthétique du déchet et du recyclage chez Joseph Cornell

Abstract

This article looks at the way Joseph Cornell transforms detritus from early 20th century consumer society into artworks. This gesture evokes the figures of the flâneur and the rag-picker, but ultimately corresponds to the specifically American aesthetics of the low as it was defined by Emerson a century earlier. The theme of recycling allows to situate Cornell within the specifically American tradition of ordinary philosophy.

Keywords

• bricolage
• waste
• ragpicker
• surrealism
• Cornell (Joseph)
• Emerson (Ralph Waldo)