The brilliantly curated Pandora’s Box: Joseph Cornell Unlocks the Collection, contextualizes works from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago permanent collection with thematics of the great assemblage sculptor Joseph Cornell.

Cornell’s body of work is characterized by the found objects he installed in little simple boxes which evoke nostalgia, memory, and time.

Divided into chapters, each room’s theme juxtaposed contemporary works with themes that mirrored Cornell’s undercurrents.  Highlights included Feathered Fantasies which paired works by Nick Cave, The Voyeur which compared works by Jeff Koons, Michelangelo Pistolleto, Cindy Sherman, my favorite was the analogies formed in context with Cut and Paste works by John Baldassari, Lari Pittman, and John Stezaker.

The most fascinating juncture was the video installations, the bubble floating through an empty house by Rivane Neuenschwander as well as one of my favorite pieces by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist titled Sip My Ocean which I had seen at the Musée des Beaux-Art Montréal in 2000.