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52-506: In consequence, the museum is not only home to the most comprehensive collection of Jorn’s own works but also holds thousands of paintings, sculptures and works on paper by other artists – members of the CoBrA avant-garde art movement and older international artists who inspired Jorn or were kindred artistic spirits including, among others, Max Ernst , Francis Picabia , Fernand Léger and Man Ray . Museum Jorn's history dates back to 1940 when

104-717: A child" Karel Appel insisted. As part of the Western Left, they were built upon the fusion of Art and Life through experiment in order to unite form and expression. They exhibited mainly in Holland, but also Paris and other countries in Europe. The first major exhibition was held at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in November 1949 under the title "International Experimental Art". Else Alfelt , one of

156-470: A decorative input from their children and graffiti . One of the new approaches that united the CoBrA artists was their unrestrained use of strong colors, along with violent handwritings and figuration which can be either frightening or humorous. Their art was alive with subhuman figures in order to mirror the terror and weakness of our time unlike the dehumanized art of Abstraction . This spontaneous method

208-662: A few women involved in the movement, participated in this first exhibition. The museum's director and curator Willem Sandberg was interested in bringing experimentalism and abstraction to The Netherlands, and had also been an active member of the Dutch Resistance during the war. He was deeply involved with the CoBrA group and maintained direct contacts between the artists and the Stedelijk Museum. The architect Aldo van Eyck , who would later become known for his architecture of playgrounds as cultural critique,

260-568: A role in the later falling apart of the Cobra Movement. This caused tension in the COBRA group with the Dutch artists boycotting a conference held at Bregnerød later that year. Matie and Jorn were married in 1950 and they had a son Ole and daughter Bodil. The COBRA group dissolved in 1951 He returned, impoverished and seriously ill with tuberculosis, to Silkeborg in 1951 and resumed work in

312-549: Is buried in the cemetery at Grötlingbo Church , on the island of Gotland in Sweden. The first edition of Luck and Chance was Jorn's first published book, issued privately to subscribers in 1952. It was written at the Silkeborg Sanatorium during his convalescence from a serious attack of tuberculosis aggravated by malnutrition and scurvy. Later in the process, it also became intended as a doctoral dissertation which

364-852: The Situationist Times . Later, he donated a museum for modern art to the Danish town of Silkeborg, near where he grew up. He was to remain close to Debord, however, and continued to fund Situationist publications. His philosophical system Triolectics was given a practical manifestation through the development of three sided football . His first American solo exhibition was at the Lefebre Gallery in 1962. After 1966, Jorn continued to produce oil paintings while traveling throughout Europe collecting images with photographer Gerard Franceschi for his vast archive of "10,000 Years of Nordic Folk Art". He traveled extensively, to Cuba, England, and

416-558: The Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux at the 1937 Paris Exhibition . He returned again to Denmark in the summer of 1937. He again traveled to Paris in the summer of 1938, before returning to Denmark, traveling to Løkken , Silkeborg and Copenhagen . Asger Jorn was a good friend of the Danish art dealer Børge Birch, owner of Galerie Birch, who sold his art as early as the 1930s. Later on Jorn held many group exhibitions and solo exhibitions in different galleries. From 1937 to 1942, he studied at

468-569: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. The occupation of Denmark by Nazi Germany was a time of deep crisis for Jorn, who had been deeply inculcated with pacifism. The occupation initially sank him into deep depression. He subsequently became active in the communist resistance movement . During the war he also co-founded with the architect Robert Dahlmann Olsen the underground art group, Helhesten or "hell-horse," and

520-430: The 1950s: Enrico Baj , Jean Dubuffet , Pinot Gallizio , Wifredo Lam , Matta , Henri Michaux , Walasse Ting , Pierre Wemaëre and Group SPUR , among others. 56°09′38″N 9°33′30″E  /  56.16056°N 9.55833°E  / 56.16056; 9.55833 COBRA (art movement) COBRA or Cobra , often stylized as CoBrA , was a European avant-garde art group active from 1948 to 1951. The name

572-544: The 20th century. Museum Jorn houses over 30,000 works by more than 600 different artists from around the world including some 100 paintings, and as many ceramic works, graphics and drawings. Two large ceramic walls donated by Jean Dubuffet and Pierre Alechinsky meet the visitors in the museum's courtyard, which also features ceramic blue stones designed by Erik Nyholm. The museum's own collection comprises works that reach back to around 1900 with work groups of Johannes Holbek , Julius Paulsen , Albert Gottschalk and from

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624-613: The Café Notre-Dame, Paris, with the signing of a manifesto, "La cause était entendue" ("The Case Was Settled"), drawn up by Dotremont. Formed with a unifying doctrine of complete freedom of colour and form, as well as antipathy towards Surrealism , the artists also shared an interest in Marxism as well as modernism. Their working method was based on spontaneity and experiment, and they drew their inspiration in particular from children's drawings, from primitive art forms and from

676-630: The SMA"). The CoBrA artists are considered scribblers and con artists . Newspapers spoke of offensive art and provocation on the part of the artists, and one evening for experimental poetry at the Stedelijk was the occasion for a public brawl. The last CoBrA exhibit was located in Liège , Belgium, in 1951. Shortly after this exhibit, the group dissolved. The show was organised by Pierre Alechinsky , an artist from Belgium. The Dutch architect, Van Eyck designed

728-486: The Silkeborg and Omegn Museum Association made its first acquisitions of art. In 1951, a single room in the local history museum in Silkeborg ( Silkeborg Museum ) was converted to hold modern art. In 1961 the museum opened an exhibition at the premises of a school building in Silkeborg, and in 1965 the independent institution Silkeborg Museum of Art was founded. In 1973 the museum took over the whole school building, where

780-600: The Situationist ideas as exclusively artistic and separated from political involvement. He was at the root and at the core of the Situationist International project, fully sharing the revolutionary intentions with Debord. The Situationist general principles were an attack on the capitalist exploitation and degradation of the life of people, and solution of alternative life experiences, construction of situations, unitary urbanism, psychogeography, with

832-528: The United States, although this name has never stuck. The movement was officially disbanded in 1951, but many of its members remained close, with Dotremont in particular continuing collaborations with many of the leading members of the group. The primary focus of the group consisted of semi-abstract paintings with brilliant color, violent brushwork, and distorted human figures inspired by primitive and folk art and similar to American action painting . CoBrA

884-435: The artists who inspired Jorn: Max Ernst , Francis Picabia , Le Corbusier , Fernand Léger , Man Ray . The Danish art is represented by Ejler Bille , Bjerke Petersen , Carl-Henning Pedersen , Egill Jacobsen , Henry Heerup and Wilhelm Freddie . From Cobra group the following can be mentioned (besides Asger Jorn ): Pierre Alechinsky , Karel Appel , Constant Nieuwenhuis , Reinhoud d'Haese , Theo Wolvecamp . And from

936-537: The autumn of 1948 he, together with Christian Dotremont and Constant , founded COBRA (a European avant-garde art movement), and edited monographs of the Bibliothèque Cobra. However by 1949 Jorn had started a relationship with Matie van Domselaer, the daughter of the composer Jakob van Domselaer and music teacher Maike Middelkoop. She had been married to Constant since 1942 and they had not separated yet. Constant did not take to this kindly, which played

988-567: The ceramics field in 1953. The following year he traveled to Albissola Marina in Italy where he became involved with an offshoot of COBRA, the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus . In 1954 he met Guy Debord , who was to become a close friend. The two men collaborated on two artist's books , Fin de Copenhague (1957) and Mémoires (1959), along with prints, and forewords to each other's work. He participated in

1040-558: The conference that led to the merger of the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus , the Lettriste Internationale , and London Psychogeographical Association to form the Situationist International in 1957. Here he applied his scientific and mathematical knowledge drawn from Henri Poincaré and Niels Bohr to develop his situlogical technique. Jorn never believed in a conception of

1092-549: The context of the communist arena had been curtailed by what he characterised as a centralised bourgeois political control. Finding this unacceptable, he broke with the Communist Party of Denmark , although he did not hand in his membership until the mid-1960s and remained committed philosophically to a revision of the Marxist analysis of capitalism from the point of view of the artist. He traveled again to France where in

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1144-453: The criticisms of Western society and a common desire to break away from existing art movements, including "detested" naturalism and "sterile" abstraction . Experimentation was the symbol of an unfettered freedom, which, according to Constant, was ultimately embodied by children and the expressions of children. CoBrA was formed by Karel Appel , Constant , Corneille , Christian Dotremont , Asger Jorn , and Joseph Noiret on 8 November 1948 in

1196-575: The current place of the avant-garde movement. The name of the manifesto was also a play on words from an earlier document signed by Belgian and French Revolutionary Surrealists in July 1947, entitled "La cause est entendue" (The Case Is Settled). The European artists were different from their American counterparts (the Abstract expressionists ) for they preferred the process over the product and introduced primitive, mythical, and folkloric elements along with

1248-468: The exhibition layout, just as he had for the 1949 CoBrA exhibition in Stedelijk. The innovations of this exhibit were that the composition for the wall was in a grid formation. In addition, the sculptures, which were featured in this show were on coal beds from the Liège area itself. This show was not specific to only CoBrA artists, and also, major artists of the CoBrA movement were not in this exhibit due to

1300-633: The existing conflict within the group that eventually led to the collapse of CoBrA shortly after in the same year. Notable artists who had contact with, and/or were influenced by CoBrA: There is a Cobra Museum in Amstelveen , Netherlands, displaying works by Karel Appel and other international avant-garde artists. The NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida , is known for its large assemblage of works of CoBrA art. The museum displays works by Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, and Asger Jorn,

1352-443: The far east. Jorn traveled to the United States for the only time in 1970, for a gallery opening at Lefebre Gallery. He had earlier asserted that he refused to travel to a country that made visitors sign a statement maintaining that they were not communists. In 1964, he was awarded a Guggenheim Award including a generous cash prize, by an international jury assembled by Lawrence Alloway . The following day Jorn sent this telegram to

1404-455: The following decades Jens Adolf Jerichau and Aksel Jørgensen . From the second half of the 20th century works of Sonja Ferlov Mancoba , Erik Ortvad , Frank Rubin , Paul Gernes , Per Kirkeby and Richard Winther are shown. The collection also contains works by artists from Eastern Europe. The museum's collection comprises also contemporary works by Georg Baselitz, Andreas Slominski, Poul Gernes and Per Kirkeby. Inside are works by some of

1456-615: The greater universal good. He also attempts to reconcile the unique and individual position of the "creative elite" with his socialist principles. The second part alternates between objective and subjective modes. Jorn had noticed some graffiti scratched into the porch at the church in Damville during a visit in 1946. Having noticed similar scratchings in Scandinavia at the cathedrals in Ribe , Lund , and Trondheim , Jorn decided to study

1508-455: The movement's leading exponents. Auctioneers Bruun Rasmussen held an auction of CoBrA artists on April 3, 2006 in Copenhagen. It set records for the highest price for an Asger Jorn painting (6.4 million DKK for Tristesse Blanche ) and for the highest amount raised in a single auction in Denmark (30 million DKK in total). Asger Jorn Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973)

1560-593: The museum was housed until 1982. At the anniversary of Asger Jorn's birthday, on March 3, 1982, Silkeborg Museum of Art moved to a newly built complex of buildings on an 8,000 m site near the river Gudenåen . The building was designed by the architect Niels Frithiof Truelsen and was inspired by the studio Constantin Brâncuși in front of Centre Pompidou in Paris. Because of the museum's large international collection, own acquisitions, and artists’ and collectors' donations

1612-481: The phenomenon. He was able to make a trip to Normandy in 1961 with Franceschi. They were able to record a number of such markings in Eure and Calvados , but not elsewhere. The results of the study were published as a book. nella realtà storica, dopo le finte dimissioni del 1961, Keller-Jorn si era appena amichevolmente defilato dalle attività dell’IS, appoggiandone in pieno i contenuti e gli scopi (al punto da continuare

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1664-567: The point of view of an artist". Critique of Political Economy and the Exploitation of the Unique (1961) This book consists of two parts. The first is a concise critique of the apparent contradictions in Marx's Das Kapital which Jorn uses to prepare the ground for a discussion of how the work of "the creative elite" can have "value" in any future society aligned on communist principles. This

1716-411: The premises were inadequate. This resulted in an extension that was inaugurated in 1998. The extension was also designed by Niels Frithiof Truelsen. Thereby, the exhibition area was increased to 3,200 m along with a daylight free gallery in the basement for exhibition of works on paper. In 2010 the museum underwent a major renovation and changed its name to Museum Jorn, Silkeborg . A modern Cobra Forum

1768-650: The president of the Guggenheim, Harry F. Guggenheim : GO TO HELL WITH YOUR MONEY BASTARD—STOP—REFUSE PRICE [sic] —STOP—NEVER ASKED FOR IT—STOP—AGAINST ALL DECENSY [sic] MIX ARTIST AGAINST HIS WILL IN YOUR PUBLICITY—STOP—I WANT PUBLIC CONFIRMATION NOT TO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN YOUR RIDICULOUS GAME JORN During the course of his artistic career he produced over 2,500 paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics, sculptures, artist's books, collages, décollages, and collaborative tapestries. He died in Aarhus , Denmark on 1 May 1973. He

1820-444: The principal wrote a reference for him which said that he had attained "an extraordinary rich personal development and maturity" – especially because of his wide reading in areas outside the topics required for his studies. While at college he joined the small Silkeborg branch of the Communist Party of Denmark and came under the direct influence of the syndicalist Christian Christensen , with whom he became close friends and who, Jorn

1872-610: The union of play, freedom and critical thinking. Such general principles were applied by Jorn to painting. In 1961 he amicably quit his activity in the SI, still fully supporting its contents and goals, and continuing to support it financially, but believing that the new strategy of the SI was ineffective. He went on to found the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism in Silkeborg and contributed material to

1924-657: The west coast of Jutland. By the age of 16 he was influenced by N. F. S. Grundtvig , and although he had already started to paint, Asger enrolled in the Vinthers Seminarium, a teacher-training college in Silkeborg where he paid particular attention to a course in 19th century Scandinavian thought. Also at about this time Jorn became the subject of a number of oil paintings by the painter Martin Kaalund-Jørgensen, which encouraged Jorn to try his hand in this medium. When he graduated from college in 1935,

1976-514: The work of Paul Klee and Joan Miró . Coming together as an amalgamation of the Dutch group Reflex, the Danish group Høst and the Belgian Revolutionary Surrealist Group, the group only lasted a few years but managed to achieve a number of objectives in that time: the periodical Cobra , a series of collaborations between various members called Peintures-Mot and two large-scale exhibitions. The first of these

2028-524: The works of art located inside to the Municipality of Albissola Marina (Savona), so the Italian museum called "Casa Museo Jorn" was created for displaying his works. He was the second oldest of six children, an elder brother to Jørgen Nash . Both of his parents were teachers. His father, Lars Peter Jørgensen, a fundamentalist Christian, died from pneumonia (contracted after a car crash) when Asger

2080-415: Was 12 years old. His mother, Maren, née Nielsen, was more liberal but nevertheless a deeply committed Christian. This early heavy Christian influence had a negative effect on Asger who began progressively to inwardly rebel against it, and more generally against other forms of authority. In 1929, aged 15, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis , although he made a recovery from it after spending three months on

2132-544: Was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist , and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International . He was born in Vejrum , in the northwest corner of Jutland , Denmark, and baptized Asger Oluf Jørgensen . The largest collection of Jorn's works—including his major work Stalingrad —can be seen in the Museum Jorn, Silkeborg , Denmark. Jorn willed his property and

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2184-478: Was a contributor to its journal with the same name, Helhesten . In 1939, he wrote the key theoretical essay, "Intimate Banalities," published in Helhesten , which claimed that the future of art was kitsch and praised amateur landscape paintings as "the best art today." He was also the first person to translate Franz Kafka into Danish. After the war, he complained that opportunities for critical thinking within

2236-418: Was a milestone in the development of Tachisme and European abstract expressionism . CoBrA was perhaps the last avant-garde movement of the twentieth century. According to Nathalie Aubert the group only lasted officially for three years (1948 to 1951). After that period each artist in the group developed their own individual paths. The manifesto, entitled, " La cause était entendue " (The Case Was Settled)

2288-674: Was a rejection of Renaissance art, specialization, and 'civilized art', they preferred 'uncivilized' forms of expression which created an interplay between the conscious and the unconscious instead of the Surrealist interest in the unconscious alone. The childlike in their method meant a pleasure in painting, in the materials, forms, and finally the picture itself; this aesthetic notion was called 'desire unbound'. The Dutch Artists in particular within CoBrA (Corneille, Appel, Constant) were interested in Children's art."We Wanted to start again like

2340-536: Was asked to do the interior design of the exhibition. The close relationship between Van Eyck and the artists from the CoBrA, who also drew their inspiration in particular from children's drawings, makes it probable that much of Eyck's early inspiration for the playgrounds may have derived from CoBrA. The Stedelijk Museum exhibition gave rise to furious criticism from press and the public. A critic from Het Vrije Volk (Free People) wrote, "Geklad, geklets en geklodder in het Stedelijk Museum" ("Smirch, twaddle and mess in

2392-463: Was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels (Br), Amsterdam (A). During the time of occupation of World War II, the Netherlands had been disconnected from the art world beyond its borders. CoBrA was formed shortly thereafter. This international movement of artists who worked experimentally evolved from

2444-447: Was designed so that visitors now can immerse themselves in the museum's extensive research material on and by Asger Jorn in electronic media and in books. With the reopening and change of name it is highlighted that the museum will continue to challenge its current role. The many new initiatives are part of the strategy to respond to Jorn's vision for the museum and to promote the artist who is considered to be Denmark's most significant in

2496-637: Was held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, November 1949, the other at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège in 1951. The group is notable for having a Black artist member, Ernest Mancoba , who was married to Sonja Ferlov Mancoba , a Danish sculptor who was one of a few active women in the movement. In November 1949 the group officially changed its name to Internationale des Artistes Expérimentaux with membership having spread across Europe and

2548-576: Was later to write, was to become a second father to him. In 1936 he traveled (on a BSA motorbike he had scraped together enough money to buy) to Paris to become a student of Kandinsky . However, when he discovered that Kandinsky was having economic difficulties, barely able to sell his own paintings, Jorn decided to join Fernand Léger 's Académie Contemporaine ; it was during this period that he turned away from figurative painting and to abstract art. In 1937 he joined Le Corbusier in working on

2600-736: Was originally published in French in 1959 by the Internationale Situationniste and is the most straightforward and least discursive of all of Jorn's texts, probably because Guy Debord had a hand in the editing. The second part is a long polemic against contemporaneous Russian revisionism and the failed attempt by Denmark and Britain to join the Common Market, before coming to Jorn's main proposal, an economically independent international "creative elite" adopting typical Scandinavian institutions to realize "artistic value" for

2652-411: Was refused by a professor of philosophy at Copenhagen University. It is, amongst other things, a critique of Kierkegaard's triad of aesthetic, ethical and religious stages, and of his definition of truth. Another powerful influence appears to be present in ghostly form : Friedrich Nietzsche. It is one of the most fundamental texts to understand Jorn's undertaking of "a reconstruction of philosophy from

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2704-487: Was written by CoBrA member Christian Dotremont and signed by all founding members in Paris in 1948. It was directly speaking to their experience attending the Centre International de Documentation sur l'Art d'Avant-garde in which they felt the atmosphere was sterile and authoritarian. It was a statement of working collaboratively in an organic mode of experimentation in order to develop their work separate from

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