ABC: ARTIST BOOK CELEBRITY

With every edition one artist, one book title and one celebrity are selected to appear in an article that highlights the artworks, songs, movie scenes, and performances that made them stand out of the crowd. The principle of following the chronological order of the alphabet and of finding names that all share the same initial letter has been inspired by the German game 'Stadt Land Fluss'. To help people to remember the names easier, I create little aide-memoires from emojis (so far they have proved to be fairly efficient).

By @carolinetruyol 

C

      Artist

Untitled (The Hotel Eden) (1945)

American artist and sculptor, Joseph Cornell was born in 1903 in New York and lived for the most part of his life in Flushing, New York, as a recluse (He died in 1972). His lack of relationships made him a self-taught artist that was afraid of strangers. His shyness made romantic relationships almost impossible. Cornell was one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage and he was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker. Many of his boxes, such as the famousMedici Slot Machine boxes, are interactive and are meant to be handled. As a young man he worked as a textile salesman. He began to make montages of engravings at the age of 26, without any art training; 6 years later they were included in the first Surrealist group exhibition in the USA at the Wadsworth Atheneum http://www.thewadsworth.org/ (the oldest public art museum in the United States). Cornell has met many of the leading Surrealist artists and writers at the Julien Levy Gallery, New York, and started to make glazed boxes containing mysterious assemblages created from found objects in poetic association. His work included was in the exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1936. 3 Years after at the age of 33 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery. Cornell made recurrent use of objects such as clay pipes, wine glasses, engravings, mirrors and astronomical maps, often with a flavour of Victorian and some allusion to the opera or the ballet. He also had numerous friendships with ballerinas, who found him unique, but too eccentric to be a romantic partner.His imagery was often related to that of Nerval, Novalis, Mallarmé and other 19th century Romantic and Symbolist writers. He also made a number of short lyrical films and a montage of old Hollywood film clips with existing film stock that Cornell had found in New Jersey warehouses, one of which isRose Hobart (additional TP 9'12'' Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnbbqiD7C7A). Died in Flushing.

E.T.P.: 2'

Fyodor Dostoevsky (also spelled Dostoyevsky) is renowned as one of the world’s greatest novelists and literary psychologists. His works grapple with deep political, social, and religious issues while delving into the often tortured psychology of characters whose lives are shaped by these issues. Raskolnikov’s time in a Siberian prison, described in the Epilogue of Crime and Punishment, is based on Dostoevsky’s own experiences at a similar prison. Dostoyevsky conceived the idea of Crime and Punishment in the summer of 1865, having gambled away much of his fortune, unable to pay his bills or afford proper meals. Raskolnikov, a conflicted former student, lives in a tiny, rented room in Saint Petersburg. He refuses all help, even from his friend Razumikhin, and devises a plan to murder and to rob an unpleasant elderly pawn-broker and money-lender, Alyona Ivanovna. His motivation comes from the overwhelming sense that he is predetermined to kill the old woman by some power outside of himself. While still considering the plan, Raskolnikov makes the acquaintance of Semyon Zakharovich Marmeladov, a drunkard who recently squandered his family's little wealth. Raskolnikov also receives a letter from his sister and mother, speaking of their coming visit to Saint Petersburg, and his sister's sudden marriage plans which they plan to discuss upon their arrival... The main plot involves a murder as the result of "ideological intoxication," and depicts all the disastrous moral and psychical consequences that result from the murder.

E.T.P.: 2'

Marion Cotillard born 30 September 1975 is a French actress, singer and songwriter. She is also an environmentalist and spokesperson for Greenpeace, the organization for which she travelled to Congo in 2010 to visit tropical rainforests threatened by logging companies. Besides she has also been the face of Lady Dior handbags since 2008 and has appeared on more than 200 magazine covers around the world. Cotillard was born in Paris, and grew up around Orléans, Loiret, in an artistically inclined, "bustling, creative household". Her father, Jean-Claude Cotillard, is an actor, teacher, former mime, and 2006 Molière Award-winning director. Cotillard's mother, Niseema Theillaud, is also an actress and drama teacher. Her two younger brothers are twins: Quentin and Guillaume. Guillaume is a screenwriter and director. Cotillard began acting during her childhood, appearing on stage in one of her father's plays. Since October 2007, Cotillard is in a relationship with French actor and director Guillaume Canet and in 2011 their now 3 year old son Marcel was born. The couple prefers to live a simple lifestyle and neither star discusses their relationship with the media. Cotillard garnered worldwide acclaim for her roles in films such as La Vie en Rose in 2007, in which she starred as the French singer Édith Piaf and for which she received critical acclaim and won several awards  including Golden Globe Award for Best Actress (she was the first person to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in a French language performance).

E.T.P. 2-3'