Since an early age, Cornell was fascinated with the Romantic ballet which saw an international revival in the 1930s, providing him with the fantasy and escape that he so eagerly sought in his own life. The Romantic ballet celebrated the ideal of female beauty, downplaying the role of the male dancer and marking the rise of the ballerina as a central part of the spectacle. Captivated by the renowned ballerinas of the time, Cornell would collect delicate memorabilia associated with Marie Taglioni and her modern counterpart, Tamara Toumanova, who both featured in numerous issues of Dance Index magazine to which Cornell contributed cover designs. The artist’s deep appreciation for the ballet is captured in his collage Homage To The Romantic Ballet (c. 1960).

Similarly, Karen Kilimnik’s art rematerializes a quest for the romantic sublime. Kilimnik’s preliminary study of theatre and stagecraft is apparent from her depictions of historic stages, their colour coded seating charts and researched drawings of ballerinas. The emergence of tutus and pointe foot work during the period created the mystical illusion of dancers barely touching the earth, like the ballerinas who frequently populate Kilimnik’s images, illustrated in Degas painting hair ornament accessories bag world, 2004. Accompanied by music from the nineteenth century Romantic ballet, the exhibition reveals the specificity with which the artist draws upon references to this particular era. In addition to the recurring subject matter of Kilimnik’s work, the artist’s use of materials suggests the influence of Cornell, evident from the ephemeral glitter illuminating the installation work Paris Opera Rats, 1993 to her reference to birds, the principal characters in Cornell’s Habitat series, in Chic robin’s egg nest, 2005.

Both artists’ frame of reference extends to the presentation of their works and the surrounding environment in which they are encountered. The organizing motif of Cornell’s Hotel series is the window, which invites the viewer to consider interior and exterior views, clearly establishing the successive rounds of reality to the mystery beyond. For the exhibition, his poignant works will be respectively showcased within the midnight blue of the gallery walls, used by the artist in his collages to create impressions of the sky and which he believed to evoke contemplation of the celestial. In addition to the painted walls and, characteristic of Kilimnik’s theatrical installations, the gallery will be transformed into an aesthetic context which alludes to the salon era of the nineteenth century, enabling the viewer to palpably enter into a dialogue with the past.