Asger Jorn (1914–73) is a central figure of post-war European avant-garde art. As a young, 23-year-old artist, in 1937 he drove a motorcycle down through Europe, and in Paris, the city of cities, he became a student of one of the great Modernist painters, Fernand Léger. He was not only the leading force behind CoBrA – with his radical devil-may-care attitude and huge ego, he also became the group’s artistic rebel. Art and life could not be separated.
The Monumental Masterpiece
Jorn’s artwork is intense, energetic and passionate. It is about life, death, love and happiness. Like many of the post-war artists, he embraced the idea of community. He was critical of the idea of an elevated view of art and deliberately challenged high culture with his use of irony and anti-aesthetics. Art became an important component in the fight against what Jorn considered the delusion of capitalism. Jorn’s main work, the monumental “Stalingrad”, with references to Picasso’s “Guernica”, was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Seattle in 1961. He worked on it several times after that, most recently at the museum in Silkeborg in 1972.
More Than 2,000 Myths, Gods, Monsters and Mythical Beasts
Jorn was also preoccupied by myths and fairy tales. To him, gods, monsters and fabulous creatures stood as symbols for us humans, and Jorn’s works are often populated by fanciful and mysterious creatures in an experimental and free idiom. As an artist he was extremely productive, painting more than 2,000 works, and he also explored graphics, ceramics and pictorial weaving. He was, in addition, the author of 23 theoretical books on art, socially critical articles and art journals. Everything Jorn did was fast paced.
