ART
Asger Jorn |
Written 30 January |
Wednesday 11 February, 11:00Centre Pompidou, 75004 [map]
Asger Jorn (1914-1973), co-founder of the
Cobra movement (an avant-garde art movement) in 1948, is one of the most important Danish artist’s of the 20th century. He spent a large part of his life in Paris, where, during the ‘30s he studied under Fernand Léger, then in the ‘50s and ‘60s he played a key role in several avant-gardes movements: notably the
International Movement For An Imaginist Bauhaus. (1953-1957) and
situationist international (1957-1960).
Asger Jorn’s art is spontaneous, dynamic and colourful. His highly expressive figurative art is marked by Scandinavian mythology and bestial fantasy. The Cobra movement brought him a new freedom which pushed him towards abstraction, often violently expressive.
At the end of the ‘50s, he produced several series of “modifications”, paintings composed from old paintings bought at the flea market. On their exhibition in Paris 1959, he wrote an iconoclastic motto which highlights both his sense of acidic irony and his infallible humour: “ be modern, collectors and museums. If you have old paintings, don’t despair. Keep your keepsakes but change them so that they fit in with our time. Why reject the antique if one can modernise it with a few strokes of the paintbrush? That throws something of now onto your old culture. Be modern and distinguished all in one go...”
Jorn also produced numerous sketches. Between 1957 and 1972, he gave more than 500 to the Silkeborg museum in Denmark. Over 100 sketches have been chosen to represent the first personal exhibition of Jorn in a Parisian museum since 1978.
| What: | Asger Jorn |
| When: | Wednesday 11 February, 11:00 |
| Where: | Centre Pompidou, Place Georges Pompidou 75004 [map] |
| Transport: | Rambuteau, Hôtel de Ville, Châtelet-Les Halles |
| Cost: | 9-12EUR |
| Phone: | 01 44 78 12 33 |
| Web: | www.centrepompidou.fr |
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