Image in the Box: From Cornell to Contemporary

Maureen McCabe... Ionia (2007, Mixed media box construction). From the exhibition Image in the Box: From Cornell to Contemporary at Hollis Taggart Galleries. "...Since the first-quarter of the twentieth-century, box construction has become a unique expressive device for many artists, as exemplified by the varied approaches of Joseph Cornell, Pierre Roy, Leo Rabkin, Lucas Samaras, Maureen McCabe, Elspeth Halvorsen, and Ted Victoria, seven artists featured in our upcoming exhibition 'Image in the Box: Cornell to Contemporary,' November 20, 2008- January 10, 2009. Comprised of 59 works covering the period from the 1920s to the present, the assemblage of box constructions presented evokes magical journeys of the imagination, captures the poetry within the most unassuming everyday objects, and conjures the mysterious, the playful, the beautiful, and sometimes, the dangerous. The works offer a keyhole aesthetic into hidden desires, forgotten dreams, or personal obsessions. At the same time, many also present motifs rooted to the particular sites, historical events, and aspects of popular culture that define the realities of twentieth-century life."