asger jorn - Verlagsgruppe Random House

ASGER JORN
Restless Rebel
STATENS MUSEUM FOR KUNST
COPENHAGEN
PRESTEL
MUNICH · LONDON · NEW YORK
ASGER JORN – RESTLESS REBEL
IS SUPPORTED BY
NEW CARLSBERG FOUNDATION
C.L. DAVID FOUNDATION AND COLLECTION
15. JUNI FONDEN
GEORGE JORCK AND
EMMA JORCK FOUNDATION
BECKETT FOUNDATION
NOVO NORDISK FOUNDATION
TOYOTA FOUNDATION
GANGSTED FOUNDATION
DANISH AGENCY FOR CULTURE
ASGER JORN
Restless Rebel
CONCEPT
DORTHE AAGESEN AND HELLE BRØNS
ARTICLES
DORTHE AAGESEN
RUTH BAUMEISTER
HELLE BRØNS
HAL FOSTER
STEVEN HARRIS
NIELS HENRIKSEN
HENRIK HOLM
KAREN KURCZYNSKI
KLAUS MÜLLER-WILLE
ROBERTO OHRT
LENDERS
ANNE & LARS OLESEN’S COLLECTION
AROS AARHUS KUNSTMUSEUM
BAYERISCHE STAATSGEMÄLDESAMMLUNGEN MÜNCHEN - PINAKOTHEK DER MODERNE
BIRCH EYDE MØLLER FAMILY
CANICA ART COLLECTION, OSLO
CARL-HENNING PEDERSEN & ELSE ALFELTS MUSEUM, HERNING
COBRA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, AMSTELVEEN
COLLECTION E. VAN ZUYLEN
COLLECTION PIERRE & MICKY ALECHINSKY
THE DANISH ART LIBRARY, COPENHAGEN
DESIGNMUSEUM DANMARK, COPENHAGEN
ESBJERG KUNSTMUSEUM
FLUID ARCHIVES
FÆNØ GODS
HENIE ONSTAD KUNSTSENTER, HØVIKODDEN
JACQUELINE DE JONG
JENS OLESEN’S COLLECTION
KAREN & FINN ERSKOVS SAMLING
KUNSTEN MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, AALBORG
KUNSTHALLE EMDEN
KUNSTHALLE ZU KIEL
LOUISIANA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, HUMLEBÆK
MONICA AND IB NYMARK HEGELUND
MUSEO NACIONAL CENTRO DE ARTE REINA SOFÍA, MADRID
MUSEUM BOIJMANS VAN BEUNINGEN, ROTTERDAM
MUSEUM JORN, SILKEBORG
NIELS COLLECTION, BRUSSELS
RANDERS KUNSTMUSEUM
THE ROYAL LIBRARY, COPENHAGEN
SILKEBORG BIBLIOTEKERNE
S.M.A.K., STEDELIJK MUSEUM VOOR ACTUELE KUNST, GHENT
SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK
STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN, KUPFERSTICHKABINETT
STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN, NATIONALGALERIE
STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
TATE, LONDON
TROELS JORN’S COLLECTION
THE WORKERS’ MUSEUM AND THE LABOUR MOVEMENT LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE
AND PRIVATE LENDERS WHO WISH TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS
CONTENTS
8
FOREWORD
PETER NØRGAARD LARSEN
12
[01] INTRODUCTION
HELLE BRØNS AND DORTHE AAGESEN
50
[02] ASGER JORN IN, ON AND ABOUT SURREALISM
STEVEN HARRIS
72
[03] ART FOR THE PEOPLE
DORTHE AAGESEN
94
[04] FROM WORD-PICTURES TO THE WILD ARCHITECTURE OF THE BOOK
KLAUS MÜLLER-WILLE
110
[05] HUMAN BEASTS
HAL FOSTER
126
[06] FOLK ART, SCIENCE FICTION AND THE MATTER OF PAINTING
HELLE BRØNS
158
[07] A THING FINISHED IS A THING DEAD
RUTH BAUMEISTER
176
[08] FIN DES MODIFICATIONS
ROBERTO OHRT
202
[09] AN ABSTRACT ART THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN ABSTRACTION
KAREN KURCZYNSKI
226
[10] VANDALIST REVIVAL: ASGER JORN’S ARCHAEOLOGY
NIELS HENRIKSEN
238
[11] POKING TONGUES
HENRIK HOLM
251
BIOGRAPHY
ANNA VESTERGAARD JØRGENSEN
270
276
278
279
280
WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE AUTHORS
PHOTO CREDITS
COLOPHON
8
FOREWORD
In recent decades, Asger Jorn’s art and thinking has generated renewed and growing interest
in Denmark and abroad, and his central role within European post-war art is becoming firmly
established. The centenary of Jorn’s birth on 3 March 2014 is the occasion prompting the
SMK and Museum Jorn in Silkeborg to commemorate the artist by presenting two major exhibitions and two books. For both museums, the intentions reach much further than simply
to celebrate Jorn as a major figure in Danish art and culture. The objective is to appraise
his art in a nuanced manner, based on the most recent art historical research, and to create
a solid basis for reassessing his importance as a major figure within 20th century art history.
In its capacity as the National Gallery of Denmark, the SMK puts emphasis on
arranging large-scale monographic exhibitions featuring important artists in Danish art
history. In recent years, the museum has shown special exhibitions that highlight artists
such as Laurits Andersen Ring, Nicolai Abildgaard, and Wilhelm Freddie. But apart from a
relatively small-scale exhibition of Jorn’s prints shown at the Royal Collection of Graphic
Arts in 1976, this event marks the first time that the SMK truly engages with Jorn’s art. His
anniversary provides a welcome occasion to finally, through this major, research-based exhibition and book project, put Jorn on the agenda, presenting his work on an expansive scale.
Right from the outset, it was obvious that the exhibition could not be realised without
entering into close interplay with Museum Jorn, which possesses a large collection of Jorn’s
works, extensive archives, and considerable expert insights.The co-operation between the two
museums led to the planning of two closely co-ordinated exhibitions and books, each of which
adopts its own distinctive perspective as it unfolds significant aspects of the artist’s body of
work. Both approaches mark a break away from a traditional, biographically founded perception
of Jorn’s work and the prevailing focus on painting that has characterised past exhibitions.
While the SMK presents Jorn’s art in a monographic retrospective that includes all
facets of his artistic production, including Jorn’s work as a theorist, Museum Jorn shows a
dialogical exhibition that presents Jorn’s art alongside works by other artists who served
Jorn as sources of inspiration and collaborative partners. The duality between the individual
and the collective is a central aspect of Jorn’s artistic project. On the one hand, his art is
based on the personal mode of expression that he believed was fundamental to human experience, while on the other hand, it is founded on social co-operation, which held an equally
important position within his overall endeavour. Thus, the two exhibitions take their point
of departure in different, but equally fundamental principles at play in Jorn’s work, and they
can be regarded as presentations that complement and supplement each other, combining
to outline a more complete picture of Jorn’s art than a single exhibition could.
Any project of this magnitude requires the help and engagement of many individuals
and institutions. First of all, we at the SMK wish to thank our colleagues at Museum Jorn for
9
many months of intense sparring, particularly the museum’s Director Jacob Thage, Curator Karen
Friis, Guest Curator Karen Kurczynski, and others from the museum staff who have helped us
with matters big and small, including Lars Bay, Lars Hamann, Teresa Østergaard Pedersen,
and Elisabeth Wildt. We also wish to extend our warm thanks to the artist’s son Troels Jorn for
his great support and interest throughout the preparatory process. Thanks are also due to the
authors presented in the present book; several of them offered important input in the ongoing
discussions while the exhibition was still under development, and the new thoughts and ideas
presented in their pioneering texts add gravitas and nuance to this project.
At the SMK, the overall curatorial and research responsibility for the project resided
with Curator and Senior Researcher Dorthe Aagesen, ably assisted by PhD Fellow Helle Brøns.
The exhibition itself was created in close co-operation with the exhibition architect Pernille
Jensen, while the multi-faceted presentation and educational materials were entrusted to
Mathilde Schytz Marvit and Louise Springborg. Anna Vestergaard Jørgensen provided invaluable assistance throughout the preparation of the exhibition, presentation materials, and
publication.
Amongst the many people who have assisted us in various ways we also wish to
give our special thanks to: Troels Andersen, Ole Arent, Tracey Bashkoff, Anette Birch, Luca
Bochicchio, Lene Borch, Hilde de Bruijn, Claus Carstensen, Tom Christoffersen, Danilo Demi,
Steinar Gjessing, Axel Heil, Per Hovdenakk, Jacqueline de Jong, Anders Kold, Peter Laugesen,
Marie-José van de Loo, Anna von Lowzow, Giovanni and Piero Poggi, Niels Raben, Birger
Raben-Skov, Rebecca Rabinow, Dominique Radrizzani, Bart Rutten, Knut Stene-Johansen,
Christian Vind, Katja Weitering, Sylvie Wuhrmann, and Lis Zwick.
Ultimately, the success of any exhibition is determined by the loans it can attract.
We wish to thank the many museums and art collectors in Denmark, Belgium, Brazil, France,
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Spain, the UK, and the USA who
have generously made their works available to the exhibition.
One last crucial factor for the realisation of the exhibition and book project is the
monetary support provided by enterprises and foundations. First of all, we wish to direct
our warmest thanks to the Augustinus Foundation, which is the main sponsor of the exhibition. We also wish to thank the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the New Carlsberg Foundation,
the Danish Agency for Culture, the C.L. David Foundation and Collection, 15. Juni Fonden,
George Jorck and Emma Jorck Foundation, the Beckett Foundation, the Toyota Foundation,
and the Gangsted Foundation, all of which have helped enable us to translate our many
ambitions and wishes into reality.
Peter Nørgaard Larsen
Head of Collections and Research
[01]
IT HAS NEVER INTERESTED
ME TO GO, UNLESS I COULD
GO TO THE EXTREMES
INTRODUCTION
“We need a Ministry of Disturbance, a regulated source of annoyance, a destroyer of routine,
an underminer of complacency, or, in other words, a ministry of aesthetic activity.”1
HELLE BRØNS AND
DORTHE AAGESEN
Statements such as this are typical of Jorn in every way. It is startling, surprising, and humorously
worded, but at the same time Jorn is being perfectly serious.To Jorn, art was a question of using
creativity to interact with and intervene in the world. Art should challenge existing notions
and norms, thereby creating opportunities for understanding the world in new ways. Ever since
Jorn became a member of the Danish Communist Party as a young man and up until his death
forty years later, he defended a view of art that posited art as entirely inseparable from social
life.When painting, writing, weaving, and sculpting, it was all part of his endeavours at opening
up the viewer’s eye to alternative worldviews, thereby paving the way for social change.
He did not, however, regard the artist as a prophet-like leader. To believe that art
could point the way ahead directly would correspond to, as he said,“requiring the manufacture of only those explosives that, despite being of extreme strength, do no harm to
anyone.”2 The artist must detonate his sensuous picture-bombs without having to consider
whether they are good or evil, and without thinking of the dangers inherent in any new
image (or indeed worldview).
Exhibition and book
This fundamental view of art as a medium for actively engaging with reality will be accentuated in this book and the exhibition it accompanies. The exercise is not a simple one. For
Jorn’s concept of “reality” is not limited to historical events or to the political scene and culture
as it appeared throughout his four decades as an active artist. To him “reality” could equally
well be found in the realms of art, philosophy, and science – or within raw matter itself. Thus,
his work also touches on and reaches out to movements that pervaded the same four decades’ Western – particularly European – art, as well as towards theories emerging within other
fields of study such as archaeology, philosophy, political theory, and science; towards art history in the widest sense of the term, encompassing prehistoric art and contemporary popular
culture; and also quite simply involves a practical, tactile, and sensuous exploration of matter,
of the stuff and substance of the artworks themselves. In this sense, Jorn’s art employs several
different and interwoven planes of reality. What is more, the project seems to be constantly
13
expanding in new directions. As the years progressed, it became increasingly obvious that
Jorn’s ambition was nothing less than all-encompassing: It was about developing a worldview,
a process that also saw him challenging numerous existing interpretations.
Just as Jorn’s body of work addresses many different themes, his artistic production
is equally diverse in nature. His experiments with different media – including drawing, graphic art, weaving, ceramics, collage, and painting – all helped shape his view of art. The book
medium also came to be of great importance to him. Jorn worked innovatively with the book
as an artistic medium from the 1930s, when he created his first artists’ books, onwards to
his large-scale book project 10,000 Years of Nordic Folk Art (the mammoth undertaking, only
partially realised, that kept Jorn engrossed throughout the last decade of his life). Books
became a platform enabling him to express his thoughts and theories about subjects that
interested him. Supplemented by a steady stream of articles in newspapers, magazines, and
journals, they add an insisting and extensive textual dimension to his work.
Our exhibition and book project presents the diversity of Jorn’s work as a distinctive
feature of the overall whole. The objective is to provide an image of Jorn’s art in all its complexity by specifically focusing on his multi-faceted approach, which combines humorous
and expressive paintings with philosophical and political texts, material experiments with
avant-garde strategies, and artistic insight with a social outlook.
Complexity is an ever-present underlying premise when working with Jorn’s art. It is
also quite typical that his artworks are never “resolved”; they do not lend themselves to a single,
uniform interpretation; rather, they unfold themselves precisely by virtue of their ambiguity.
This is particularly evident in the titles, which are often poetic, paradoxical, or humorous.
“I believe that the value of a picture rests on the opportunities it offers for linking
each individual picture to numerous interpretations […] That is why I use titles in a very casual manner, always taking care to never become too explicit,” said Jorn in 1972.3
The meanings provided by the titles interact with the visual statements made by the
works themselves, creating scope for new layers of interpretation in a dizzying game of multiple
meanings on several levels. Jorn also changed effortlessly from one language to the next; for
most of his adult life he moved between several European localities and let the language
spoken in the region he currently happened to occupy govern the title of the works created
there.Ambiguity was a central artistic strategy that invites active participation from the viewer.
Jorn aimed to break down the barrier separating the artist’s creative work and the viewer’s
passive appropriation, allowing the viewer’s own creativity to enter the equation.
Paradoxes, contrasts, ambiguities, or, to use a more Jorn-esque turn of phrase, the
“dialectic interplay” between many different dimensions are at the core of his art. This becomes even clearer if you try to categorise Jorn and his work. For to which camp did he actually belong? His art unites several, sometimes conflicting positions within the art scene
of his day. On the one hand, he was instrumental in the development of post-war abstract
painting, but at the same time he was one of the founders of the politically active Situationist movement which rejected painting, preferring instead to let art unfold itself within the
realm of lived life through constructed “situations”. He criticised his fellow artists in Cobra
14
HELLE BRØNS AND DORTHE AAGESEN
for being more interested in artistic style than in the political potential of art, but on the
other hand he left the Situationists when political objectives were given priority over artistic
interests. He believed that images were of greater and more fundamental importance than
words, but he himself produced a wealth of texts. He advocated individual expression, but
was also fond of working collectively. He was against institutionalisation, but founded his
own museum. Jorn cannot be summed up by a single formula, and his work evades categorisation – both facts that have proven quite a headache for art historians. For what does one
do with an artist who held a key position, but was simultaneously with and against the
groupings of which he was part, insisting on reconciling the irreconcilable?
Jorn in art history
This problem is probably part of the explanation why most art historical treatments of Jorn’s
art have long tended to leave out important aspects of his endeavours. Until quite recently,
the general perception of his art centred primarily on the expressive and painterly aspect
of his production. Most literature presents him as a modernist painter – one who occasionally ventured out into avant-garde experiments.4 Jorn’s texts were long deemed unscientific
and confused, without relevance to our understanding of his visual art. Only from the mid1990s onwards have Jorn’s theoretical writings been the object of serious analysis.5
Even so, yet another decade would pass before earnest attempts were made at considering Jorn’s artistic and theoretical work simultaneously, and at examining his role within
the various European avant-garde groups with which he was associated. Jorn’s role within
the politically active Situationist movement has been of particular interest in Danish and
[01.1]
international studies in the last decade.6 Those studies have also prompted the questions
Frem. Marxistisk maanedshefte for politik, økonomi,
kultur (Forward. The Marxist Monthly on Politics,
Economics, Culture). Copenhagen Dec. 1933, vol. 2,
no. 3
about his political commitment to emerge and grow steadily more pressing. Generally speaking, however, the reception of Jorn is still dominated by an interest in either the evolution
of his expressive painting or the political and theoretical aspect of his work. This inherent
tension within interpretations of Jorn’s art – and within the oeuvre itself, one might claim
– is an inescapable issue when studying Jorn’s universe today.
This book considers both aspects of Jorn’s work and seeks to elucidate the relationship between Jorn’s painterly and theoretical project, all while considering the contrasts inherent in his work as aspects of a deliberate artistic strategy. We seek to add new nuances
to the general perception of Jorn as a purely modernist painter, foregrounding other, more
avant-garde aspects of his oeuvre – something which Jorn, with customary ambivalence,
also spoke about himself: “I’ve always swiftly distanced myself from those who parade
around with the medal of the avant-garde on their chests, yet it has never interested me to
go, unless I could go to the extremes.”7
Political beginnings
In order to outline the contours of Jorn’s political and social engagement, thereby establishing a framework for his artistic project – which is our intention in what follows – one must
delve all the way back to the early 1930s. Jorn presumably became a member of the Danish
[01] INTRODUCTION
15
[01.2]
Christmas Carols (Julens salmer) · 1933 · Linocut
Museum Jorn, Silkeborg
a: Golden light of morning bright, is shed upon
my labour (Morgenstund har Guld i Mund vi til
vort Arbejd ile), 73 x 79 mm · b: The Law it is a
sacred call; showing us our Lord and Saviour
(Loven er et helligt Bud viser os vor Gud alene),
101 x 78 mm · c: Repentance and prayer (Anger
og Bøn), 73 x 64 mm · d: But Our Father from on
high, He is living! (Men vor Fader i det Høje, han
lever!), 73 x 80 mm · e: Praise to the Lord, who o’er
all things so wondrously reigneth (Lov dog den
Herre som alting saa herligt regerer), 101 x 78 mm
f: Desist from your grief and lamenting. Let the
Word of God bring you comfort (Med Sørgen og
Klagen hold maade Guds Ord lad jer trøste og
raade), 71 x 75 mm
d
f
c
b
e
a
16
HELLE BRØNS AND DORTHE AAGESEN
[01.3]
Communist Party around 1930.8 The graphic series Christmas Carols (Julens salmer) from
Portrait of Christian Christenen. Figure Study
1933 · Oil on canvas · 55.5 x 47.5 cm · Museum
Jorn, Silkeborg
1933 is his earliest artwork to testify to his political position. As Jorn himself put it, the
objective of this series was to challenge, by means of satire,“Christian smugness”.9 The pictures combine existing carols and hymns with gloomy images of life on the lower rungs of
society, testifying to a well-developed social awareness on the part of the young artist – he
was barely 20 at the time – and to a strongly critical approach to society’s ruling institutions,
particularly as far as church authorities were concerned. Characteristic features include the
black humour and the critical bite exposing the hypocrisy amongst the ruling classes while
he himself clearly shows his solidarity with the oppressed.
As an illustration to the stanza “Golden light of morning bright, is shed upon my
labour”, we find dejected workers dragging themselves off to the factory while the hideous
visage of capitalism faces us [01.2a]. “But Our Father from on high, He is living!” is the title
of another work showing a well-nourished and vibrant God in Heaven hovering above a
[01] INTRODUCTION
17
graveyard full of crosses as far as the eye can see. [01.2d]. The scenes were created as
linocuts in a coarse, expressive style reminiscent of the German Expressionism of preceding
decades; a style that was one of the starting points for Jorn’s early ventures into art and a
legacy to which he returned and sought to appropriate in the wake of World War II.10
In 1933, a selection of 16 out of the total of 24 linocuts were printed in the small Communist journal Frem (Forward) under the heading “Blasfemiske Julesalmer” (“Blasphemous
Carols”) [01.1]. The journal, which was published during the period 1932-35, was edited by
the writer and art historian Rudolf Broby-Johansen, who was one of the strongest cultural
personalities of the Danish left wing and famous for his unorthodox approach that was opposed to e.g. established academia.11 When Jorn and Broby met in the early 1930s, Broby was
busily formulating his materialistic view of art. Broby’s politically engaged, anti-academic
methods must have served as an inspiration for Jorn, and Broby’s great interest in popular culture, particularly Nordic popular culture from church murals to contemporary everyday culture,
forms a crucial backdrop to Jorn’s artistic project as it evolved in the decade that followed.
Jorn had a remarkable ability to establish contact with people who could benefit his
case in various ways. He banged down the doors of key intellectuals, writers, and other
major figures of the political left wing of the 1930s. This is not just true of Broby-Johansen,
but also of the literary critic Harald Rue, who belonged to the same circle, and of the chairman of The Student’s Society (Studentersamfundet) Jørgen Neergård. Through the latter,
Jorn also met the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who went into exile in Denmark for some
months in 1933. Jorn drew inspiration from the people with whom he came into touch and
was eminently skilled at paving the way for realising his ideas.
His introduction to the political scene was, however, primarily effected through the
Syndicalist leader Christian Christensen, who lived in the village of Sejs outside of Silkeborg
when Jorn was young. Jorn himself has stated that Christensen became a kind of father figure who imprinted him with intellectual and spiritual ballast that would become the main
foundation of his life. Christensen was a radical figure who had been politically active on
the left wing since the turn of the century, initially with the Social Democrats, then with
the Syndicalist Association (Syndikalistisk Forbund), and, from the early 1920s onwards, in
the Danish Communist Party whose newspaper, Arbejderbladet, he also edited for a brief
time. In the 1930s, he was still active as a debater and agitator. Christensen was, then, the
perfect role model for how to be a socially engaged citizen; famed for his undogmatic approach to ideologies, and sufficiently uncompromising and opposed to authorities to have
spent time in jail in 1918-20 for agitation in favour of overthrowing the state.12
Christian Christensen introduced Jorn to Marxism and admonished him about the
importance of raising political and social awareness amongst the working class. It was
during visits to Christensen that Jorn became familiar with the journal Frem and other small,
sectarian magazines published by the left wing. In 1933, Jorn painted Christensen’s portrait
using broad brushstrokes and simplified planes of colour, a style typical of his painting before his first trip to Paris. In this portrait, Jorn shows Christensen as a large, warm, serious
man with his characteristic bald head bent over a book [01.3].
18
HELLE BRØNS AND DORTHE AAGESEN
During three stays in Paris – made between 1936 and 1939, where he studied at the French
painter Fernand Léger’s Atélier de l’Art Contemporain and was introduced to international avantgarde art – Jorn retained his political engagement. Upon first arriving in Paris, he sought out,
as a matter of course, the office of the Communist party, and a fellow party member helped
him settle in and housed him immediately after his arrival. Like many other artists and intellectuals in Europe, he was concerned with the Spanish civil war and expressed his solidarity
with Spain’s democratically elected Republican government. In the spring of 1937 and the summer of 1938, Jorn assisted on the installation of an “informative exhibition” at the Spanish government’s propaganda agency in Paris, presenting photographs and documents about the
Spanish civil war. He also wrote essays to the Communist Arbejderbladet, reporting on the horrors of the civil war and the inhuman methods employed by Franco’s Fascist troops.
Jorn’s texts from the 1930s are characterised by a passionate, agitational style and
a firmly convinced defence of Communism. They also, however, point to art’s potential in
the battle for democracy.“The struggle fought by the Spanish government is borne forth by
a wave of culture, the swell of which can be felt by the most remote countries on our globe,
growing to form a fierce surf breaking against the attackers of Madrid,” he says in one of his
essays. “No Spanish artist can be left untouched by what goes on in his country today […]
The new Spanish art is agitational, but that in no way diminishes its worth as art.” To Jorn,
the model example was Picasso, “pre-eminent of all artists working in this field,” whose
large-scale painting Guernica had demonstrated to everyone that he was “aware and convinced” in his fight.13 Similar subject matter can be found in Jorn’s own paintings, particularly
around 1950, and his frequent contributions to especially Arbejderbladet in the 1930s
suggest that he sensed a growing threat from Fascism and wished to warn others against it.
From Linien to Helhesten
Jorn’s repeated stays in Paris in the late 1930s made him familiar with surrealism, partly through
Fernand Léger, who introduced him to Surrealist literature. However, even before venturing out
for France, he had already become acquainted with Surrealist art, presumably through the journal Linien, which was published in 1934-35. Its texts and images proved crucial for the dissemination of Surrealism in Denmark. The main drivers behind Linien were the three artists
Vilhelm Bjerke-Petersen, Ejler Bille, and Richard Mortensen. Even before the end of 1934, a rift
became a break between Bjerke-Petersen on the one hand and Mortensen and Bille on the
other, supposedly because of Bjerke-Petersen’s far too heavy-handed, symbol-oriented interpretation of Surrealism. From that point on, Mortensen and Bille took on a more clearly defined
role as representatives of an abstract interpretation of Surrealism, and when Jorn returned to
Denmark in August of 1937 after his first period in Paris, he immediately sought out the two
artists in Copenhagen. Surrealism would prove to be an important foundation for the subversive
strategies developed by Jorn while Denmark was under German occupation.
A straight line connects the journals Linien and Helhesten; the first issue of the latter
was published in 1941 and numbered Jorn and Bille amongst its main drivers. Despite differences between the aesthetic values promoted by the journals and the significantly
[01] INTRODUCTION
19
[01.4]
Høstudstillingen (Harvest Exhibition) 1948. Back
row: Ernest Mancoba, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Erik
Ortvad, Ejler Bille, Knud Nielsen, Sixten Wiklund,
Aage Vogel-Jørgensen, Erik Thommesen. Seated:
Karel Appel, Tony Appel, Christian Dotremont, Sonja
Ferlov with her son Wonga, Else Alfelt. Front row:
Jorn, Corneille, Constant, Henry Heerup
[01.5]
Asger Jorn and Robert Jacobsen at Samsø, 1943.
Gunnar Jespersen’s photo collection, Museum Jorn,
Silkeborg
changed political situation after Germany’s occupation of Denmark in 1940, there are also
prominent similarities between the two. For example, both journals shared a profile that
cut across established professional categories, they shared an interest in ethnographic subjects and popular culture, and both featured reviews and essays written by the artists themselves and strove to actively contribute to the debates of their time.
For Jorn, the period from the late 1930s up through the occupation years became characterised by an increasingly strong alliance with other Danish artists of his generation. From
the autumn of 1937 onwards, Jorn and Bille formed a close relationship that grew particularly
intense in 1938 when they both stayed in Paris at the same time. Jorn observed Bille’s unfettered experiments with drawing and painting which were, at this point, in marked contrast to
Jorn’s own disciplined style of painting and drawing, heavily influenced by his schooling under
Léger. His acquaintance with Bille prompted a development towards a rather more free visual
idiom, and for Jorn the process gained momentum during the war.After the breakout of World
War II and the occupation of Denmark, which forced the artists to stay in their native countries,
the relationships between the Danish artists grew in strength. People such as Bille, the sculptor
Robert Jacobsen, the architect Robert Dahlmann Olsen, and the archaeologist P.V. Glob became
particularly close sparring partners for Jorn. They would go on combined holiday and working
trips together, e.g. to the island of Samsø in the summer of 1943; a stay full of collaborative
work, discussions, wild ideas, and parties [01.5]. The relationships created an artistic community, manifested through exhibitions, journals, and collective projects that challenged the
values of the bourgeoisie and the occupational forces alike.
Denmark passed through the trials of World War II relatively unscathed, and its cultural
scene had much greater freedom to act than in other European countries. Jorn spoke of the
20
HELLE BRØNS AND DORTHE AAGESEN
[01.6]
Untitled · c. 1941 · Oil on wood barrel· H: 69.85 cm
Nova Southeastern University’s Museum of Art,
Fort Lauderdale
[01.7]
Untitled · 1940-42 · Oil, cardboard, scraps, and
sandpaper mounted on hardboard · 31 x 35 cm
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
[01] INTRODUCTION
21
occupation years as a “time of growth” that had prepared the artists to “take part in the future
international evolution of art”.14 The seeds of much of Jorn’s later art were sown by his activities
in Denmark in the 1940s, and it was here that many of his key strategies were established.
This is true of e.g. Jorn’s special preference for collective work, something he practiced when
creating murals for a kindergarten in the Østerbro area of Copenhagen along with other artists;
an act staged in opposition to a traditional Romantic-bourgeois celebration of the uniquely
gifted author. The project prefigured the communal works created during the Cobra years.
Jorn’s interest in Nordic culture was also founded during the war years; a time when travelling
in Europe was difficult. The Nordic theme would continue to engage Jorn for the rest of his
life and became an important aspect of his anti-classical worldview.
Many of the themes that interested Jorn are reflected in the contents published in
Helhesten; the journal stands as a major testament to the Danish art scene of the period,
and Jorn’s great dedication to the editorial process meant that it came to reflect his wideranging interests to a considerable degree. This is where Jorn’s art theoretical writings first
became fully formed, including early key articles such as “Intime banaliteter” (“Intimate Banalities”), in which Jorn advocated the qualities of popular culture, and “De profetiske harper”
(“The Prophetic Harps”) about the relationship between picture and word. His defence of
popular culture proved particularly groundbreaking, providing a celebration of “the eternally
commonplace, the simple and cheap” such as kitsch art, printed scraps, and tattoos. This
happened only two years after the American art historian Clement Greenberg had published
his epochal text “Avant-Garde and Kitsch” in 1939, arguing the exact opposite point: that
kitsch expressed backwards-looking values and was the polar opposite of “genuine culture”.
Jorn’s interest in popular culture is also embodied in his works from that period. For example,
[01.8]
1st International Experimental Art Exhibition,
Cobra, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, November
1949. Poets’ cage, bottom to top, left to right: Gerrit
Kouwenaar, Bert Schierbeek, Lucebert, Jan Elburg,
and Karl-Otto Götz. Word paintings by Lucebert
UNVERKÄUFLICHE LESEPROBE
Statens Museum for Kunst
Asger Jorn
Restless Rebel
Gebundenes Buch mit Schutzumschlag, 280 Seiten, 24x30
300 farbige Abbildungen
ISBN: 978-3-7913-5357-9
Prestel
Erscheinungstermin: März 2014
Asger Jorn war einer der wichtigsten Künstler der europäischen Avantgarde der Nachkriegszeit.
Er gehörte mehreren Kunstströmungen an, die oftmals im Widerspruch zueinander standen: Für
die Entwicklung des abstrakten Expressionismus in Europa war er von zentraler Bedeutung.
Zugleich war er Gründungsmitglied der politisch engagierten Situationistischen Internationalen
und kritisierte seine CoBrA-Kollegen, die sich mehr auf einen farbenprächtigen Malstil als auf
das politische Potenzial der Kunst konzentrierten. Als die Situationistische Internationale ihre
politischen Ziele deutlich über das künstlerische Anliegen stellte, löste er sich jedoch auch von
dieser Gruppe. Bilder waren für Asger Jorn wichtiger als Worte, nichtsdestotrotz schrieb er viele
Bücher.
Die Widersprüche in Jorns Werk waren wichtiger Teil seiner künstlerischen Strategie und ein
wesentliches Charakteristikum seines OEuvres. Diese chronologisch angelegte Monografie
mit Essays führender Jorn-Experten und zahlreichen Abbildungen gibt einen Überblick über
die wichtigsten Themen und Werke dieses großen dänischen Künstlers, der 2014 seinen 100.
Geburtstag gefeiert hätte.