Of Archives and Unfulfilled Romances

7/29/2019 Of Archives and Unfulfilled Romances

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OfOfOfOf AAAArchives andrchives andrchives andrchives and Unfulfilled RomanceUnfulfilled RomanceUnfulfilled RomanceUnfulfilled Romancessss

Carmen Cebreros Urzaiz

Image: UncertaintyPrinciple(HenriettaSontag) by Joseph Cornell


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Of Archives andOf Archives andOf Archives andOf Archives and Unfulfilled RomanceUnfulfilled RomanceUnfulfilled RomanceUnfulfilled Romancessss

FormybelovedfriendMaestroLalo

Personal archives are regarded as portals towards the other subjects private sphere. It

does not matter if it was the owners will for it to be an archive; it does not matter how

well organized and classified his/her owner kept it; it does not matter if it acquired its

status as archive out of an accidental assemblage. Archives are intrinsically residual

anyways. They are collateral entities.

While belonging to their living proprietors and collectors, archives exist as exercises on the

implementation of hierarchy; more or less well achieved, more or less failed, yet always

exercised. Their items are preserved out of meaning; an immediate, imminent and

unquestionable meaning, or meaning projected for a yet amorphous future, or forgotten

meaninglessness that allowed them to infiltrate and stay. Floating and flowing meaning.

Once they are adopted for their (imaginary) perpetual preservation, archives remain to be

read in between the lines, for connections to be made (maybe between it and other

archives), to speculate, to find hidden stories, to be narrated, to be completed, to be

transgressed. Such an adoption becomes its first initiatory transgression. The archive is

taken up by the institution and now it the archive will have to follow the rules. For it to

fairly coexist with its new younger and older siblings (the other personal or institutional

archives), it will have to become uniformed: to be scrutinized, to become readable, to be

searchable, to be inventoried, to be historicized.

* * *

While exploring the online inventory of Susan Sontags collection, sheltered by the Charles

E. Young Research Library at UCLA, I found, among the different categories in it, one that

captured my attention on top of the rest: Artwork by others, and within it another pair,

Joseph Cornell Artwork and Joseph Cornell box.


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The arbitrariness of my prejudice and the ignorance in the appealing shape of curiosity

about this affiliation, is what brought me up to the encounter with these objects, with

these subjects, but furthermore, with the reflections I am about to expose. This unexpected

affiliation could be described from the vantage point where I was starting as one

between an artist, whose description in my records would be male, career started in the

early twentieth century, not quite avant-garde, although contemporary to them, old and to

some extent outsider, the last two specially if considered next to Susan Sontag. And

she, a fierce feminist, critic of critique, profound analyst on the tricks and perversions of

representation (particularly photography), whose taste I would have never associated with

stuffed birds and butterflies, ballerinas, or vintage paraphernalia, no matter how intriguing

the juxtapositions. But again, it was my prejudice the one speaking at all times at this point.

Another thing is worthy to be mentioned: I was somehow placing my admiration (for both)

somewhere in between that line drawn by my constructed extremes.

Were they two friends? was my first question. They must have been friends I assumed,

otherwise what could be the reason for things ascribed to Cornell being in Sontags archive,

in such a private redoubt of her, instead of being in a museum or an auction house, in case

they whatever they were at that pointwere works of art. Keeping and accumulating

things from another person necessarily imply some kind of empathy, appreciation or

affection, unless it is treated as a distanced object of study which, again, didnt seem part

of Sontags field of interest, in which case there is a possibility for such a thing or things

to be regarded as the most despicable ones, but never something that only inspires

indifference.

What was then the reason for Cornell to occupy a space within Sontags space; to beamong the matter that now composes the material remains of Sontag: those papers that

she touched, saw, read, marked, folded, unfolded, and lived with, all of which nurtured or

were waiting to nurture her affections, intellectual legacy and articulated discourse.


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The distinction expressed in the inventory between Joseph Cornell Artwork and Joseph

Cornell Box made the case even more enigmatic. Joseph Cornells artwork more often

than not consisted on boxes with particular arrangements, assemblages and juxtapositions

between objects and fragments of objects.

What did these two different categories stand for? Which objects, documents or items are

knit together by each? What kind of borders or limits do they draw? What borders or limits

have drawn them?

* * *

My appointment is set. My day to meet with this box whatever it is, whatever is in it

has arrived.

Archives are secluded places. The atmospheric resemblance between their reading rooms

where their items are allowed to be inspected and the areas for prisoners to receive

visitors is undeniable. It has to be that way. Bodily contact, sweat, friction, handprints,

saliva, dust (which is in larger part an accumulation of death cells of bodies) all this has to

be kept at minimum. What is at stake here is (imaginary) perpetuity, an image that is not

compatible with bodies.

(T)heproductionofhistoryisaphysicalendeavor.Itrequiresahightoleranceforsittingand(T)heproductionofhistoryisaphysicalendeavor.Itrequiresahightoleranceforsittingand(T)heproductionofhistoryisaphysicalendeavor.Itrequiresahightoleranceforsittingand(T)heproductionofhistoryisaphysicalendeavor.Itrequiresahightoleranceforsittingand

forreading,formovingslowlyandquietforreading,formovingslowlyandquietforreading,formovingslowlyandquietforreading,formovingslowlyandquietlyamongotherbodieswholikewisesitpatiently,lyamongotherbodieswholikewisesitpatiently,lyamongotherbodieswholikewisesitpatiently,lyamongotherbodieswholikewisesitpatiently,

staringalternativelyatthearchivalevidenceandthefantasiesitgeneratesstaringalternativelyatthearchivalevidenceandthefantasiesitgeneratesstaringalternativelyatthearchivalevidenceandthefantasiesitgeneratesstaringalternativelyatthearchivalevidenceandthefantasiesitgenerates (Foster, 1995: 6)(Foster, 1995: 6)(Foster, 1995: 6)(Foster, 1995: 6)....

While I wait for my requested materials to arrive, I pick my seat and set my computer onthe table. My next-chair neighbor acknowledges my arrival, and receives me by condensing

her working space and discretely babbling about her unawareness of her sudden expansion

over the table. She rearranges her materials and piles them up. I am allowed to examine

one box at a time; obviously, my first choice is the Box120,Folder1/Woodenbox


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constructedbyJosephCornell(5-3/8"x14-3/4"x3-1/2").nodate/PhysicalDescription:1

item.1

What is this box? At first glance it is a gray cardboard box, just like those other populated

by documents. I opened it, and I find a wooden box in vertical position tighten with foam to

fit its container. It is a contained box. I pull it from its container; the first thing that this box

is now, is a powerful smell.

I seize its shape and realize it is empty. It has no cover and by holding such vertical position

it can not be a container in itself. It is an empty box filling, with its emptiness, another box.

The cardboard that protects this box shows a label WoodenboxconstructedbyJoseph

Cornell.This description immediately triggers my imagination. Constructed by speaks

about a body that labors and transforms a material into an object with a purpose.

These five segments of (perhaps) pine wood, joined by ten headed nails at the bottom, four

be-headed nails and two screws at the sides, some minor accidental marks of pen, and a

scrape in one of its corners is still, and above all, a penetrating smell. I inhale with

intentionality and try to think about Cornells workshop, about Sontags drawers, about the

place where this box was resting two days before. I deliberately smell, and suddenly I fear

someone will come to tell me that smelling is forbidden; that I have to return the particles

that are now in my lungs, because they are the property of UCLA too. Nobody came. Empty

boxes can give some much to talk about, but I suspect this one is not going to speak. Not on

its own, not under these conditions.

Notallwritingbodies,however,fitintotheshapesthatsuchtheoricsmakeforthNotallwritingbodies,however,fitintotheshapesthatsuchtheoricsmakeforthNotallwritingbodies,however,fitintotheshapesthatsuchtheoricsmakeforthNotallwritingbodies,however,fitintotheshapesthatsuchtheoricsmakeforthem.Someem.Someem.Someem.Some

wiggleawayorevenlashoutasthehistorianescortsthemtotheirproperplaces,resistingwiggleawayorevenlashoutasthehistorianescortsthemtotheirproperplaces,resistingwiggleawayorevenlashoutasthehistorianescortsthemtotheirproperplaces,resistingwiggleawayorevenlashoutasthehistorianescortsthemtotheirproperplaces,resisting

anddefyingthesweepofsignificancethatwouldcontainthemanddefyingthesweepofsignificancethatwouldcontainthemanddefyingthesweepofsignificancethatwouldcontainthemanddefyingthesweepofsignificancethatwouldcontainthem (Foster, 1995: 8)(Foster, 1995: 8)(Foster, 1995: 8)(Foster, 1995: 8)....

1 Quoted from the website and catalog of the Online Archive of California, in http://www.oac.cdlib.org/

findaid/ark:/13030/kt2489n7qw/dsc/?dsc.position=5001#c02-1.2.11.17.4


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I put the box back in its container and request another box. Box 121 where Allitems

originallyinsidewoodenboxarenow.2

Archives are structured for bodies to manipulate them and inhabit them. How wide can be

a box for a hand to hold it? How heavy could it be to be carried by the average archivist

or user? How tight the folders inside can be before hands and fingers act clumsily, or

brusquely, or result fat to pull between the folders with more force? How much free space

should be considered to be left for fingers to penetrate and explore the insides of these

boxes skillfully? How many shelves, rooms and buildings such freedom will require? How

visually homogenous this boxes should look in order to allow the archivist to focus in the

numbering and classifying system, and not be distracted by the features of the containers?

How many boxes fit in the shelf? At which height shelves could be reached? How many

shelves fit in the room? Which devices does bodies need to reach the higher shelves? How

these shelves draw patterns, transform into corridors, into architectures? How bodies

circulate and learn to be oriented in these labyrinths called archives?

This box, also gray, same size than the former one, contains a row of homogenous folders,

homogenously disposed, all perfectly labeled. I peep out inside them. I see some postcards,

letters, poems, drawings, the metallic cover of a chocolate-coin, a ring with a cat. I am not

sure where to begin; then I pick the one at the front: LetterfromJosephCornelltoSusan

Sontag,datedDecember3,1965. It is a typed letter on a white paper; not very appealing. I

review then the labels and realize that the folders are organized according to the date; but

half of them are not dated and relegated to the back. I explore then the first not-dated

item: 2tornportionsofundatedletterfromCornell,aChristmaspostcardfromDecember

23,1908,andacatstamp,withenvelopepostmarkedNovember29,1965.1965,1908,nodate.I can only take one folder with me to the table. I can not compare two items, unless I

perform some kind of juggling while standing in front of the box. I pick the folder with the

not-dated letter

2Ibid.


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The page is torn in two pieces, and the lower half is only a fraction of it. In this folder is also

an envelope, and it is dated indeed. The date is November 30, 1965. I speculate that this

folder contains the first correspondence that Cornell sent to Sontag. In the first dated letter,

that I speculate is in fact the second, Cornell explains more about a former letter saying

that one week ago he sent the fragment of an inept attempt to tell you of my

appreciation for your very fine aperu on the subject. Cornell also explains that he could

not bring it off adequately, and so (he) enclosed parts of it with Christmas greetings. The

description coincides with the torn letter. I am however not sure if it was sent already torn,

if Sontag did it, or if it happened while been looked up as an archival item. These labels and

order seemed to conceal more than what they described.

InthatdreamInthatdreamInthatdreamInthatdream----likespacethatcollectsfilmedorperlikespacethatcollectsfilmedorperlikespacethatcollectsfilmedorperlikespacethatcollectsfilmedorperformedreconstructionsofthepast,visualformedreconstructionsofthepast,visualformedreconstructionsofthepast,visualformedreconstructionsofthepast,visual

imagesfromthepast,textualreferencestopastbodies,historicalbodiesbegintosolidifyimagesfromthepast,textualreferencestopastbodies,historicalbodiesbegintosolidifyimagesfromthepast,textualreferencestopastbodies,historicalbodiesbegintosolidifyimagesfromthepast,textualreferencestopastbodies,historicalbodiesbegintosolidify

(Foster, 1995: 7).(Foster, 1995: 7).(Foster, 1995: 7).(Foster, 1995: 7).

The uniformed archive instigates the solidification of that former floating and flowing

meaning, that I spoke about at the beginning of this text. The necessary homogeneity that

prevents it from incommensurability, that makes it part of the archive, that allows it to

fairly coexist with its younger and older siblings, erases and obscures classifying actions

performed upon it. This makes the archive seem naturally ordered: systematized in an

unquestionable manner. Yet we believe in these actions to make more accessible, more

readable, more decipherable the documents and items contained.

When I recognized the narrative obfuscations that following the physical order of the

archive was causing, by persuading me about its hygienic and objective structure, I decidedto find out what was been obfuscated too by the fragmentation of the second and the third

boxes (both containing items related to Cornell). Separation is an intrinsic archival

operation.


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UCLA purchased Sontags archive in 2002 while she was living and fighting cancer.3

The

Online Archive of California explains the processing history of Sontags archive.

The Susan Sontag Papers came to UCLA in two installments. The first installment, received

in 2002, was processed maintaining the organization created by Susan Sontag as it was

transferred to UCLA. ()The second installment, received in 2005, was combined with thefirst installment, maintaining the organization and arrangement of the 2002 installment as

much as possible. Due to the nature of the second installment materials, though, some

changes were made to the existing organization and arrangement.4

She died in 2004. This means that she pre-selected one part of it, and kept another part to

be incorporated posthumously.

The box 122 of artwork by others is part of the selection integrated in the second

installment. Among many others of different provenance, one last folder containing

Cornells communication is in it, and it contains only one item: GreetingcardfromJoseph

CornellwithenvelopeaddressedtoSusanSontag(datedJune6,1969).This postcard

depicts a geodesic sphere with ornaments of leaves resting on a double pyramid sustained

by a geometrical base; a sticker of a robin (bird) was added to the illustration.

Much of Cornells work consisted in allocating objects, within an already existing structure

a structure that he has established himself. One can evoke him working in a table with

a lamp directing the light to his small elements, gluing them, fixing them together, carefully

holding a dead butterfly, or an old piece of dusty paper, or a small sticker depicting a

bouquet of flowers. One can imagine his delicate fingers placing this fragments with

precision. Ingredients of this kind were sent to Sontag, some of them without further

explanation; some others with added cryptic pieces of writing.

This was clearly not a friendship but something else. These letters, poems, random objects,

pieces of paper, and valentine postcards forced me to review one of Sontags biographies

3 Avins, Mimi, UCLA Buys Sontag's Archive, Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2002, in

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/jan/26/news/mn-249144 Website and catalog of the Online Archive of California, in http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/

kt2489n7qw/admin/#processinfo-1.2.6


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(published in 2000 before her archive became public); and this biography brought me to

one about Cornell. Diverging of the friendship I have speculated about, what Cornell

actually experienced was a strong crush for Sontag, arised while watching her speaking

about education on TV (Rollyson, 2000: 94) and aggravated after reading a book review

where she discussed Surrealism. They both met personally, Sontag paid a few visits to

Cornells home in Manhattan. Apparently he gave her two of his boxes (apart of the plain

box) and some of his experimental films, and he also created some works having her as

inspiration, even using her image in one of them (Solomon, 1997: 314-315). Cornell

seemed to be a person who lived in his head rather than his body () I saw what was there;

he was fragile and thin and looked almost translucent. If I thought about what he did

sexually, I guess I assumed he didnt do anything said Sontag about the artist in interview

with his biographer (July 11, 1994) (1997: 314, 405). He then felt disappointed and send his

assistant to request some of his gifts back (Sontag interviewed by Solomon, 1997: 314, 405).

Cornells last communication was the postcard with the sticker of the robin. Inside it is

handwritten: From the hand of my gal Friday. Id be writing more if you were staying

longer. / a bientot and dont forget (dated 6-23-69 but labeled as June 6, 1969).

ThepenThepenThepenThepen----pushingbody,afterall,bearsonlythethinnestsignificanceasaninadequaterobotics,pushingbody,afterall,bearsonlythethinnestsignificanceasaninadequaterobotics,pushingbody,afterall,bearsonlythethinnestsignificanceasaninadequaterobotics,pushingbody,afterall,bearsonlythethinnestsignificanceasaninadequaterobotics,

theapparatusthatfailstoexecutethemindswilltheapparatusthatfailstoexecutethemindswilltheapparatusthatfailstoexecutethemindswilltheapparatusthatfailstoexecutethemindswill ((((Foster, 1995:Foster, 1995:Foster, 1995:Foster, 1995: 4)4)4)4)....

By stating whose body is performing the physical act of writing, and making clear that it is

not him, Cornell charges the action with aura and meaning. He contests the irony proposed

by Foster that acknowledges writing as a merely mechanical action. He makes clear for

Sontag that it was his touch deposited in these objects that were reaching her, touchingher, as he were making his desire manifest through his preeminent medium and life source:

the associative objects, textures and elements added to his found and appropriated

materials. By emphasizing that it was not him, but his gal (probably the same that visited

Sontag to request the gifts back), he seals the breakage of this contact.


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* * *

Bybestillingthemselves,modestly,historiansaccomplishthetransformationintouniversalBybestillingthemselves,modestly,historiansaccomplishthetransformationintouniversalBybestillingthemselves,modestly,historiansaccomplishthetransformationintouniversalBybestillingthemselves,modestly,historiansaccomplishthetransformationintouniversal

subjectthatcanspeakforallsubjectthatcanspeakforallsubjectthatcanspeakforallsubjectthatcanspeakforall (Fo(Fo(Fo(Foster, 1995:7).ster, 1995:7).ster, 1995:7).ster, 1995:7).

Clearly Cornell was not counting that these pieces of his soul would end in boxes in the

library of a university. He was not pre-cataloguing himself; but in fact he was, by stating the

date, or not doing it in his correspondence.

I was able to trace these hints, to inquire on the physicality of archival organization, and

finding some discrepancies within it, due to the fact that I was presently and bodily reading,

traveling through the files, making choices that would favor my spatial constraint and

preventing my expansion (on the table for example, in which case, perhaps my reading

would be drastically different and my attention drawn towards some different aspect). It

was my presence and contact with these objects what provided my illusion to feel that I am

transgressing this archive by reconstructing a different temporality from it; one that is not

its concealing hygienic cataloguing, neither the accumulated mixture inside the wooden

box fabricated ex-profeso by Cornell, but a different one. As historians do, I am achieving

for a few minutes the satisfaction of having achieved an authentic configuration, the

one meant by the archive; accessing some this correspondence that even the biographers

did not have access to or did not reviewed. But as it is also well known, historians

achievements are historical too; and someone else would annex and refute my

speculations to bring new ones, contaminated with his/her own questions, so full with the

illusion of authentication.


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BBBBIBLIOGRAPHYIBLIOGRAPHYIBLIOGRAPHYIBLIOGRAPHY

Foster, Susan Leigh, Choreographing History, in Susan Leigh Foster (Ed.)Choreographing

History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. p. 3-21.

Online Archive of California in http://www.oac.cdlib.org/

Rollyson, Carl Edmund, and Lisa Olson Paddock. SusanSontag. New York: W. W. Norton &

Company, 2000.

Solomon, Deborah. UtopiaParkway:thelifeandworkofJosephCornell. New York: Farrar,

Straus and Giroux, 1997.

Documents

Of Archives and Unfulfilled Romances