Untitled (Medici Prince) c. 1953

Editor: We're looking at Joseph Cornell’s "Untitled (Medici Prince)" from around 1953, a mixed-media assemblage. It's housed within this dark, ornate wooden box. The portrait inside feels…strained, and I'm intrigued by the little orange knob. How do you interpret this work? Curator: The box itself is a potent symbol, isn’t it? Think of Pandora’s box, or even a reliquary. What does containment suggest to you, particularly with this “prince” trapped within? Editor: A gilded cage perhaps? Or preserved memory? Curator: Precisely! Consider the cyanotype—the blue portrait—a photographic printing process yielding a ghostly, dreamlike image. What memories do cyanotypes evoke in you? Are they stable, fixed? Editor: Not at all, they fade. So, is Cornell hinting at the ephemeral nature of power, even nobility? And the photographs down the side? Curator: Indeed. Repeated, regimented. Almost like film stills, capturing moments in time, yet static. This, juxtaposed with the organic spheres - both inside and out - suggests the unresolved tension between structure and chance, perhaps the rigid roles thrust upon individuals versus their own desires. The "Medici Prince" is a construct built from these relics of cultural memory. Editor: So the orange knob becomes like an escape valve or point of agency for the contained figure. It’s a release of tension, almost as if the sphere escaped out. Curator: Exactly. The image of power in limbo. Cornell, as always, leads us through intricate layers. These disparate parts – photography, a classical figure, simple orbs – carry enormous symbolic weight. He is using our memories against us, inviting us to reconsider history, individuality and our preconditioned views. Editor: I’m struck by how much these symbolic images ask us to remember and then question our own cultural assumptions. Curator: Indeed, Cornell's work remains relevant precisely because it invites this self-reflection.