The most striking thing about the exhibition “Joseph Cornell/Marcel Duchamp … in resonance” is its catalogue.[1] Expertly designed and lavishly illustrated, it contains photographic reproductions that are almost as good as being there. The book’s eye-catching layout is matched by the meticulousness of its essays, artists’ chronologies, and inventory of work. What makes the catalogue truly noticeable, however, is its heft. While 344 pages may not earn it phone book status, the catalogue is nevertheless a major tome, one whose size is in contrast to the exhibition it elucidates. For “in resonance” is an intimate show, occupying a single gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It delineates the correspondence, both personal and artistic, between these two singular artists, who also happened to be friends, and, by comparing and contrasting works by both men, the show strikes some telling parallels. “In reso ...

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