현대미술을 이해하고 연구하는데 있어서 여러 사조와 많은 작가들을 거론하여 그 향방을 알기도 하지만, 미술사적 의미를 갖는 한명의 주요작가를 그의 작품성을 알아봄으로서 그 자리매김을 알아 현대미술의 흐름을 알아보는 것도 하나의 방법이라고 할 수 있다. 그러기에 연구자는 전후 미국 추상조각의 한 형식으로서의 조셉 코넬(Joseph Cornell, 1903～1972)의 작품형식인 상자작업 안의 콜라주와 앗상블라주의 구조학을 중심으로 연구함으로서 그의 조형양식의 의미를 고찰하고자 한다.
As a self-taught surrealistic artist, Joseph Cornell(1903-1972) has created his own Assemblage arts by combining with different forms of the Surrealism and the Constructivism and in later period, he has pursued for the Box Art, derived from the collage style of the earlier period. Having spent the unfortunate childhood, he has given the continuance and transcendence to the past memories associated through the found objects in a poetic disposition. It implies the presence of absence, which makes possible for the viewer to experience the psychological time. Such transcendental - kairos time has been deviated from romanticity of Surrealism and transformed into a new one with some hints of logical classicism, by unifying the past and the present into one. Thus his Assemblage Sculptures have an evocative inclination, which has been changed into the transcendental Surrealism with his own poetic logic and magical property rather than the Surrealism itself with a simple logic. Therefore, his art world is not an attempt for making a trip to his personal past through a simple use of the Surrealism, but an endeavor for establishing only a new Utopia of his own beyond such a simple logic.