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ASGER
JORN:
THE SECRET
OF ART
A GIFT FROM
OTTO VAN
DE LOO AND
FAMILY
Cobra Museum
of Modern Art
Amstelveen
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A GIFT FROM OTTO VAN
DE LOO AND FAMILY
Katja Weitering
page 08
ASGER JORN ALS
GRAFICUS (NL)
Wieland Schmied
page 13
THE GRAPHIC ARTIST
ASGER JORN
Wieland Schmied
page 37
CREDITS
Asger Jorn: The Secret of Art is published by the Cobra Museum of Modern
Art, Amstelveen to celebrate the gift
from Otto van de Loo and family of 150
graphic works from Asger Jorn. The
works are exhibited under the same
title from September 28th 2014 until
January 18th 2015.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.
© Cobra Museum of Modern Art,
Amstelveen, 2014
© Asger Jorn c/o Pictoright Amsterdam,
2014
© the authors and photographers
Photography: Henni van Beek, unless
indicated otherwise
Translations: Bookmakers Vertalersteam, Nijmegen
MARIE-JOSÉ VAN DE
LOO INTERVIEWING
OTTO VAN DE LOO AND
JÜRGEN WEIHRAUCH
page 73
ASGER JORN:
THE SECRET OF ART
Hilde de Bruijn
page 83
Per Hovdenakk
page 101
DONATIONS LIST
page 105
Design: Richard Niessen (Niessen &
de Vries)
Print: Zwaan Printmedia
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Otto van de Loo (l) and Asger Jorn (r)
in front of the work Ausverkauf einer
Seele,, Eisenacherstr. 15, Munich,
1959. Photographer unknown.
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woodcuts by Asger Jorn.
Gifts are indispensable
for a relatively young collection such as that of
the Cobra Museum. Up to
now, we had very few examples of Jorn’s graphic
art in the collection. Otto
van de Loo’s generosity
makes it possible for the
museum to show the development in Jorn’s rich,
diverse graphic art oeuvre from the 1950s until
1970.
THE SECRET
OF ART
A GIFT
FROM OTTO
VAN DE LOO
AND FAMILY
was a 33-year-old art
historian, eager to learn
about the developments
in contemporary art. He
was determined to open
a new gallery in Munich
that would offer an alternative to the classical and
modern art of the existing
galleries. This was the
heyday of Art Informel one of the key themes in
the Cobra Museum’s programme - in the French
capital, and Van de Loo
got to know the work
of such artists as Henri
Michaux, Antonio Saura
and Antoni Tàpies.
wrote the following letter,
in his best German: I had
an idea . I hope, that
you will like it , that I
come to Munich to do
the paintings. I could
let me inspire, and it
could be ver y meaningf ul for me to live
a lit tle bit in Munich.
(… ) If I of fer you
such an proceeding,
then because I’ve
never been to Munich
before and because
Munich plays a big
emotional role for
Scandinavian ar tis t s,
the
Scandinavian
ar t his tor y can’t be
separated f rom the
Munich school [supposedly Der Blaue Reiter].
I don’t k now it personally and there fore I’m ver y curious
for a long time. (Asger
Jorn in a letter to Otto van
de Loo from Paris, November 1957)
Van de Loo founded the
legendary Galerie Van de
Loo Projekte in Munich.
He was one of the first
people to introduce experimental contemporary
art to Germany in the late
1950s. Van de Loo was
closely involved with his
artists and this gift is an
expression of the intenThis special book has sive relationship between
been printed in a limited gallery owner and artist.
edition to celebrate the
gift from Professor Dr. Otto van de Loo first met
Otto van de Loo (1924) the Danish artist Asger
and his family of 150 Jorn (1914-1973) in Paris
etchings, lithographs and in May 1957. Van de Loo
Asger Jorn’s painting
reached a peak in the
years following Cobra,
during which he created
powerful,
expressive
work. Otto van de Loo
must have seen those
paintings as epitomising the spirit of the age.
In September 1957, he
opened Galerie Van de
Loo at Maximilianstraße This letter marked the
25 in Munich. In Novem- start of a lifelong friendber of that year, Jorn ship and professional re-
8
9
Katja
Weitering
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lationship. It was through
Jorn and L’Internationale
Situationniste that Van
de Loo came into contact with the members of
Gruppe SPUR (the Spur
group). The uncompromising work of these
post-war German artists gave expression to
the mood of a new generation with its roots in
the Sixties. Men such as
Lothar Fischer, Heimrad
Prem, Helmut Sturm and
HP Zimmer felt an affinity with the politically
engaged, expressive art
of Asger Jorn. They all
found a ‘home’ at Galerie
Van de Loo.
Otto van de Loo introduced Germany to Asger
Jorn’s work. He made
sure that Jorn, who was
always on the move, had
sufficient financial resources to keep on working. A number of key
works in the Danish artist’s oeuvre were created
in Munich, both graphic
art and the monumental
painting A Soul for Sale
(Ausverkauf einer Seele,
1958-59, Solomon R.
Guggenheim Foundation
The young gallery owner Collection, New York).
went against the flow by
establishing a base for Asger Jorn and Otto van
art that explored new de Loo not only shared a
fields of artistic activity love of experimental, exand presented unknown pressive art, they also had
artists. Top priority was the same ideas about the
given to building a rela- importance of sharing art.
tionship of trust between Jorn was a generous man
the artist, the dealer and who donated his personthe public. With his per- al collection of his own
sonal zest and his abil- work and that of others,
express my respect to Per
Hovdenakk - a contemporary of Otto van de Loo,
former museum director
and a friend of the Cobra
Museum - as well. He
has played an important
role in the emergence of
this gift. Finally, I would
like to thank our curator Hilde de Bruijn who,
drawing on her extensive
knowledge of Jorn’s oeuvre, supervised the presentation of the graphical
works and this special
It is a great honour for publication with so much
the Cobra Museum to be expertise and dedication.
one of the recipients of a
gift from Otto van de Loo
Katja Weitering is Artistic Director
and his family. Also on
of the Cobra Museum of Modern Art,
Amstelveen
behalf of my colleague
Els Ottenhof, Executive
Director, I would like to
express my gratefulness to Mr Van de Loo
and his daughter MarieJosé van de Loo (who
has run Galerie Van de
Loo Projekte in Munich
since 1998) for the way
in which they have enriched the museum’s
collection. I would like to
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ity to identify tendencies
in art that mattered, Van
de Loo was soon running
one of the leading international galleries.
including Jean Dubuffet, to his home town of
Silkeborg. Van de Loo has
made the impressive collection he has accumulated over the course of
his life available to the
public, serving the general interest, on an almost
unprecedented scale. He
has donated works to the
Nationalgalerie in Berlin,
for example, the Kunsthalle in Emden and the
Albertinum in Dresden.
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Asger Jorn wilde niet dat
men een al te precieze
voorstelling van hem had.
Als we ons eenmaal een
beeld van hem hadden gevormd onttrok hij zich daar
weer aan. Hij heeft zich
nooit laten vastleggen op
bepaalde artistieke uitingen of technieken.
ASGER
JORN ALS
GRAFICUS
Wieland
Schmied
Asger Jorn together with Paco Munser
(l) und Rezsö Somfai (r) during the
making of a series of woodcuts in
the basement of the Forum Galerie
van de Loo, Munich, February 1970.
Photographer unknown.
Asger Jorn was dol op
problemen. Als die er niet
waren, maakte hij ze, voor
zichzelf en voor anderen.
Hij vond het heerlijk om
in zijn werk hindernissen
op te werpen – of die als
zodanig werden ervaren
of als een prikkel om ze te
overwinnen liet hij aan ieder voor zich over. Hij hield
ervan om steeds weer met
iets onverwachts uit de
hoek te komen – het publiek moest maar zien of
het zich liet afschrikken of
fascineren.
Asger Jorn heeft geschilderd,
geaquarelleerd, getekend, hij heeft
muurschilderingen en miniaturen gemaakt, beelden in steen, brons, klei,
hij heeft geëtst, gelithografeerd en houtsnedes
gemaakt, hij heeft gouaches, collages, wandtapijten en keramiek gemaakt,
hij heeft steeds opnieuw
groepen kunstenaars om
zich heen verzameld, gestimuleerd en gesteund,
hij heeft voor de werken
van zijn vrienden een eigen
museum ingericht en drie
oudgedienden aangesteld
als directeur, hij heeft
voorbeelden van Scandinavische volkskunst bijeengebracht en het Skan-
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dinavisk Instituut for
Sammenlignende Vandalisme (Scandinavisch
Instituut voor Vergelijkend
Vandalisme) opgericht, hij
heeft middeleeuwse fresco’s, beeldhouw- en houtsnijkunst en monumenten
van niet-westerse culturen gefotografeerd en gepubliceerd, hij heeft reizen
ondernomen om de een of
andere noordse staafkerk
te zien en hij heeft verzetspamfletten gedrukt,
hij heeft gedichten vertaald en affiches voor de
Parijse mei-opstand van
1968 ontworpen, hij heeft
essays geschreven, boeken en portfolio’s uitgegeven, hij heeft in de meest
uiteenlopende
vormen
stelling genomen tegenover de tijd, tegenover anderen en tegenover zichzelf. Hij heeft geleefd.
geleefd
Begiftigd met een tomeloze vitaliteit en geleid
door een feilloos instinct
heeft hij dit leven opgevat
als één groot avontuur van
mensen ontmoeten, sa-
menhangen onderzoeken,
sporen achterlaten. Bevangen door een rusteloze
nieuwsgierigheid heeft hij
zich op de meest bizarre
studies geworpen, bezeten van experimenteerdrift
heeft hij de meest uiteenlopende technieken van het
kunstenaarsvak uitgeprobeerd.
De programmatische koppen bij enkele fragmenten uit zijn boek Held og
Hasard (Geluk en toeval),
geschreven in 1952, toen
hij voor enige tijd in een
sanatorium in Silkeborg
was beland en op zijn eigen dwarse wijze terugblikte (in 1966 in het Duits
uitgegeven als Gedanken
eines Künstlers), geven
een indicatie van Jorns
denken als kunstenaar:
Esthetiek opgevat als
belangstelling
voor
het onbekend ; Esthetiek als nieuwsgierigheid en verbazing ; Esthetiek als spanning,
verrassing of schok ;
Esthetiek als feest,
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dronkenschap of bevrijding ; Esthetiek als
inspiratie, begeestering of spontaniteit.
Al is in deze regels steeds
sprake van esthetiek, in
wezen ging het Jorn niet
om het systeem van een
nieuwe esthetiek, eerder
om verzet tegen de oude.
Want alleen uit rebellie,
twijfel en tegenspraak
kan nieuwe kunst ontstaan. Jorn wilde conventies verstoren, morrelen
aan gewoontes en onrust
verspreiden, en wat was
daartoe beter geschikt dan
kunst, de kunst die hij zijn
leven lang probeerde te
maken? Voor hem waren
leven en kunst synoniem.
Wie het over Asger Jorn
heeft, heeft het over de
noodzaak van kunst. Dat
is het eerste wat we bij zijn
werk ervaren als we ons er
nader mee bezighouden:
de noodzaak van kunst.
Zijn schilderijen en zijn
grafische werk spruiten
voort uit een bewustzijn
waarin de kunst maatstaf
en referentiepunt is voor
alles wat gebeurt, alles
wat we doen, en alles wat
ons overkomt. Maar het
woord ‘bewustzijn’ is in dit
verband te beperkt. Deze
schilderijen komen net zo
goed voort uit het onbewuste, uit de totale, niet in
meer of minder bewuste
zones in te delen psyche
van een mens, zoals water opborrelt uit een bron.
Voor Jorn was kunst niet
iets esoterisch en ook niet
iets geïsoleerds, niet een
zaak van musea of de elite.
Voor hem was kunst het
meest vanzelfsprekend,
het spel van de kinderen,
de intrede van Eros, het
spoor dat ons leven nalaat.
Ze was het natuurlijkste en
het noodzakelijkste – even
noodzakelijk als lucht inademen, even noodzakelijk als voeding, warmte en
samenleven, en misschien
nog wel noodzakelijker. In
zijn vroege jaren in Parijs –
in 1937 en opnieuw vanaf
1947 – heeft Jorn enkel
van de kunst geleefd, niet
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van de verkoop, maar van
het maken ervan: van zijn
zwarte schilderijen en van
zwarte koffie, zwarte sigaretten en wat rode wijn.
Het gekrabbel van een kind
met kleurpotloden op papier of met krijt op straat, de
woorden die tweehonderd
jaar geleden of gisteren in
kerkmuren of urinoirwanden zijn gekrast, waren
hem even dierbaar en vond
hij even belangrijk als de
figuren en gebaren op de
etsen van Rembrandt: heel
directe boodschappen van
de mens, voor iedereen te
begrijpen die met kunst
leeft en van kunst houdt.
Kunst was voor hem de absolute expressie en de onontbeerlijke impuls van ons
bestaan. Voor Asger Jorn
was kunst niet het vaststaande resultaat maar
de onafgebroken gestelde
vraag, niet het onherroepelijke doel maar het permanent op weg gaan.
In al zijn werken steeg hij
boven zichzelf en zijn ei-
gen intenties uit, vergat en
vernietigde hij alle bewuste bedoelingen, smeet hij
met zijn krachten, deed hij
of hij iemand anders was,
ging hij met het toeval een
verbond aan tegen zichzelf.
Kunst die geen avontuur
was en waarvan de uitkomst niet onzeker was,
waarbij de kunstenaar
niet zichzelf en zijn werk
voortdurend op het spel
zette, verdiende voor Jorn
die naam niet. Hem ging
het om spontaniteit, niet
om wat correct was, om
steeds opnieuw genomen
risico’s, niet om routine.
Bij weinig kunstenaars is
de scheidslijn tussen lukken en mislukken zo dun
als bij Jorn – het instinctieve streven naar zekerheid
van zijn meesterwerken
moest hij telkens weer bekopen met een diepe val:
als hij de laatste puntjes
op de i wilde zetten en
te lang met een schilderij
bezig bleef. Net zo vaak
echter leidde het uitputten
of afdwalen van de wil tot
een overwinning van zijn
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figuren en tot een triomf
van de kunst, alsof de wereld zich ermee bemoeide
en niet toestond dat de
schilder zijn werk verder
voerde dan het geheime
doel ervan.
Vooral in het zich laten leiden door instinctieve krachten, het uitschakelen van
bewuste ideeën liggen de
complexe kwaliteiten van
de schilderijen en de grafiek van Asger Jorn, waarin
ook het onaffe voltooid is,
het expressieve objectief:
de suggestie van zijn persoonlijke mythologie.
Voor Jorn zelf betekenden
de uiteenlopende mogelijkheden tot artistieke
expressie in principe allemaal evenveel en ze
waren hem allemaal even
welkom als de kans om
uit nachtelijke zones visioenen tevoorschijn te roepen, en het materiaal en
medium dat hij direct bij de
hand had leek hem steeds
het meest geschikte en belangrijkste; de wereld reageerde echter vooral op de
schilder en zijn tijdgenoten
pikten allereerst de schilderkunstige boodschap op.
Dat is geen toeval, en zeker niet louter te verklaren vanuit de traditionele
hiërarchie van de disciplines van de kunst, waarin
de schilderkunst nu eenmaal de hoogste plaats
krijgt toegewezen. Jorn is
onder de kunstenaars uit
de naoorlogse jaren een
van de grote coloristen: in
de omgang met kleur bezat
hij een intuïtieve zekerheid
en van al zijn talenten was
dat voor kleur beslist het
meest vooraanstaande en
in het oog springende.
Asger Jorn wordt dus terecht geroemd als schilder,
maar met evenveel recht
en even onomstotelijk
komt de tweede plaats toe
aan Asger Jorn de graficus,
de schepper van etsen, litho’s en houtsnedes in
zwart-wit en kleur.
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Jorn nam grafiek en wat
ermee te bereiken was uiterst serieus. Het werken
met grafische technieken,
met graveernaald, koperplaat en zuren, met lithosteen en etspers, met guts
en houtblok was voor hem
evenzeer – of toch bijna
evenzeer – een existentiele ervaring als de omgang
met penseel, kleur en linnen. Dit werk was door
geen ander te vervangen,
het resultaat viel in geen
enkele andere techniek te
herhalen.
In iedere prent probeerde
Jorn iets te bereiken wat
met geen enkele andere
techniek en in geen enkel
ander medium mogelijk
was; zijn vroege etsen
zijn heel anders dan de
tekeningen uit dezelfde
tijd, de kleurige litho’s
zijn geen herhalingen van
schilderijen en in de latere
gekleurde houtsneden en
droge-naald-etsen heeft
hij resultaten bereikt die
boven die van werken in
andere technieken uitste-
ken. Misschien werd hij
juist door het verzet dat
de lastige technische procedés met guts en droge
naald boden gestimuleerd om werken van de
allerhoogste intensiteit te
scheppen.
Iedere prent moest voor
Jorn iets eenmaligs uitbeelden dat hij nooit eerder
had gemaakt en dat zich
ook niet later liet herhalen.
Het liefst had hij gehad dat
elke afzonderlijke afdruk
anders was dan de andere.
Daarom hield hij de oplage
altijd zo laag mogelijk en
het verklaart ook het relatief hoge aantal proef- en
tussendrukken: Jorn was
bijna altijd aanwezig als
de platen of stenen werden afgedrukt, probeerde
de meest uiteenlopende
kleurencombinaties en
volgorde van de platen
of stenen uit, voegde toe,
haalde weg, corrigeerde,
experimenteerde – het
werken in de drukwerkplaats was voor hem een
feest waarvan hij lang en
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intensief genoot, en hij voordat zich verrassende
was de beste kameraden ontdekkingen
konden
met zijn drukkers.
voordoen, voordat uit de
plaat, het houtblok of de
Wat de geringe oplages be- steen nieuwe fabelwezens
treft waarin hij zijn prenten tevoorschijn kwamen.
liet verschijnen: Jorn had
zo zijn eigen theorie over Al betekende het oppakartistieke economie. In ken of opnieuw oppakken
de wereld, zo meende hij, van een grafisch procedé
bestond er maar een be- op een bepaald tijdstip
perkte opnamecapaciteit voor Jorn een nieuwe arvoor Jorn: hoe kleiner de tistieke ervaring en prooplage van een prent, hoe beerde hij in elke reeks
groter de kans dat hij meer prenten datgene wat hij
grafiek zou kunnen maken. eerder had bereikt te overHij wilde niet boven ieders treffen, toch werd hij door
bankstel hangen.
de oude beeldenwereld
steeds weer ingehaald,
Jorn hield van kleine op- hoeveel metamorfosen en
lages en hij hield van het omslagmomenten hij ook
werken in series, ook al doormaakte.
voegde een reeks opeenvolgende prenten zich bij Het is altijd dezelfde
hem vaak niet aaneen tot stroom beelden die de
een cyclische samenhang. schilderkunst en de
Hij heeft maar weinig op grafiek draagt, schreef
zichzelf staande, afzon- Ursula Schmitt in haar esderlijke prenten gemaakt. say over Jorn als graficus
Hij moest meerdere malen in de tentoonstellingscaeen aanzet maken om echt talogus van de Kestner‘warm te lopen’, hij moest Gesellschaft uit 1973. Wat
het technische procedé ook steeds gelijk blijf t
goed in de vingers krijgen is het prepareren van
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09-09-14 22:07
het materiaal om een
beeldende voedingsbodem te creëren
waaruit zijn voorstellingswereld ontspruit.
Of het nu het linnen,
de koperplaat of de
lithosteen
betref t,
steeds weer is het het
vrije, speelse, improviserende traject van
het gereedschap en
het medium waaraan
Jorn zich overgeef t
om een beginpunt te
vinden voor het beeld
dat hij ver volgens
langzaam uit de aanvankelijk nog onbestemde ondergrond
tevoorschijn laat komen. In deze omgang
met de beeldmaterie
zit iets van het visionaire vermogen van de
sjamaan, die wonderlijke, magische dingen
ontdek t door met een
stok in de as te porren. Wat Jorn daar
tussen dagdroom en
nachtmerrie op de
beeldvlakken tevoorschijn roept is een
wereld van fantastische gedaanten die
helemaal in de sfeer
van my the en magie
is gesitueerd ; bizarre,
tweeslachtige
wezens – de vruchten
van een diep getroebleerde verbeelding
en een animistische
natuurbeleving – zijn
daar werk zaam, ergens tussen visioen
en spookbeeld, vervloeking en betovering, drama en farce.
In deze visuele wereld
laat Jorn zich kennen
als een late nakomeling van dat oeroude
mensengeslacht dat
de angst en verbazing
over de ongewisheid
van het lot met behulp
van vormen en tekens
probeer t uit te bannen.
Daarnaast spreekt er
de primitieve voorstelling van een bezielde
natuur uit die vooral
noordse volken eigen is.
Dit is, zo kunnen we samenvattend zeggen, het
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consistente visuele
idioom waarop zowel
de schilderijen als
de grafiek van Jorn
berusten. Vooral in de
vroegere jaren, toen de
ontwikkeling nog aarzelend voortbouwde op de
beeldenwereld die zich in
hem had gevormd, nam hij
diverse malen het thema
van een schilderij als uitgangspunt voor een grafisch werk, of pakte hij het
motief van een prent weer
op in een schilderij, niet
om het te herhalen maar
om te onderzoeken welke
andere kanten hij er in een
andere techniek uit zou
kunnen halen.
Later blijven de inhoudelijk-figuratieve aanzetten
duidelijker gescheiden en
is er eerder sprake van formele parallellen die men
hier en daar kan ontdekken, bijvoorbeeld tussen
de kleurstelling van een
reeks litho’s en een serie
schilderijen uit dezelfde
tijd, of tussen de blokachtige vlakken van de late
collages en de houtsnedes
die daarna zijn ontstaan.
Het overzicht van het grafische werk van Asger Jorn
dat door Jürgen Weihrauch
is samengesteld, vermeldt
meer dan 430 nummers
uit veertig jaar. Dat is, puur
kwantitatief gezien, maar
een fractie van het schilderkunstige oeuvre, ook
als men in aanmerking
neemt dat in de grafiekcatalogus de illustraties
bij een tekst of de in een
boek gebundelde prenten
vaak onder één nummer
zijn samengevat; alleen al
in het eerste deel van de
catalogue raisonné Jorn in
Scandinavia, die aan zijn
schilderkunstige werk tot
1953 is gewijd, registreert
Guy Atkins meer dan 800
schilderijen.
Het grafische werk van
Asger Jorn omvat linosnedes, litho’s, etsen in de
meest
uiteenlopende
technieken, houtsnedes
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en enkele zeefdrukken die
speciaal voor tentoonstellingsaffiches werden gemaakt. Jorn hield niet van
zeefdruk: die voldeed niet
aan de eis die hij aan oorspronkelijke grafiek stelde
en liet onvoldoende speelruimte aan zijn experimenteerdrift.
Jorn begint in 1932 met
linosnedes: er ontstaan
vier kleine afdrukken met
portretten van zijn broers
en zussen. Hij is op dat
moment achttien jaar en
heeft zijn eerste schilderpogingen – kleine landschappen en portretten
– al achter de rug. In 1933
volgde een serie van zestien linosnedes, de ‘blasfemische kerstliedjes’ die
hij had gemaakt voor een
marxistisch maandblad;
de afzonderlijke afbeeldingen zijn gebaseerd op de
openingsregels van verschillende kerstpsalmen
en leveren daar ironisch
of agressief commentaar
op. Als we ze nader bekijken zien we al – zij het nog
realistisch uitgedost – de
dronken spookgestalten
uit zijn latere schilderijen,
die daar rondzwerven en
op hun eigen wijze met
boosaardig gelach of in
open rebellie de heilige
nacht beleven.
Al in 1933 ontstaan etsen
in zwart-wit, als privéillustraties bij een boek
van Richard Gandrup. Een
ervan doet in zijn mistigspookachtige atmosfeer
denken aan Mysteriën
van de Noorse schrijver
Knut Hamsuns en aan de
excentrieke figuur Johan
Nilsen Nagel, die een paar
noten op zijn viool krast;
en is op een andere ets
niet die Hamsuneske figuur te zien uit Hamsuns
Hunger (Honger), die in
rusteloze koortsdromen
door de straten van het
oude Christiania zwerft?
Dan volgt een onderbreking van vier jaar, waarin
Jorn geen grafisch werk
maakt. Hij is dan in Parijs,
waar hij werkt in het atelier van Le Corbusier en in
22
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 22-23
Fernand Légers Académie
Contemporaine. De twee
Contemporaine
etsen die we uit deze tijd
bezitten, naaktstudies, komen over als met tegenzin
vervulde plichtplegingen.
Hij heeft ze opgegeven zodra hij het atelier van zijn
docenten weer verliet – het
evenwicht tussen vrijheid
en discipline had hij nog
niet gevonden.
In hetzelfde jaar, 1937, ontstaat een linosnede waarop een plastisch gemodelleerde abstracte vorm te
zien is die van Henry Moore
of Hans Arp had kunnen
zijn. In 1938 tekent hij als
illustraties bij het boek Pigen i Ilden (Het meisje in
het vuur) de tot ritmische
tekens vereenvoudigde
dansende figuren die zich
ergens tussen Arp en Joan
Miró bevinden, clichématige lijntekeningen over in
linoleum gesneden toonvlakken.
Kunsten in KopenhagenCharlottenburg, zo vertelde
Asger Jorn zelf ooit in een
gesprek. Daar volgde hij de
opleiding grafische kunst.
De dagelijkse lessen duurden echter maar een paar
uur, zodat er ’s middags veel
tijd overbleef om alleen en
op eigen houtje in de werkplaatsen te improviseren
en te experimenteren. De
eerste etsen, gekenmerkt
door levendige, lineaire figuraties, verraden nog duidelijk de hand van de kunstenaars door wie hij zich
destijds liet beïnvloeden
– Paul Klee, Miró – maar al
snel ontspruit naast, onder
en tussen de figuren overal
Scandinavische vegetatie, groeien er bosjes gras,
mos, onkruid, struikgewas, doornstruiken op de
plaat en overwoekeren de
vormenwereld van de oorspronkelijke afbeeldingen:
Miró wordt Jorn.
Dit vlechtwerk van lijnen
Als etser begon hij pas echt en deze wirwar van strein 1939, op de Koninklijke pen verspreiden zich over
Academie voor Schone de koperplaat en verdich23
09-09-14 22:07
ten zich op sommige plaatsen tot een onontwarbare
massa en zijn op andere
doorzichtiger, als het ware
deel uitmakend van een
oneindig weefsel. Ze leggen de beeldende basis
die, zonder vooropgezet
doel neergeschreven, vervolgens uit zichzelf de kunstenaar de associatieve
aanzetten geeft om verduidelijkend in te grijpen
en hem stimuleert de hier
nog sluimerende concrete
kiemcellen wat verder te
laten rijpen, ze tot suggestieve tekens op te wekken.
In de grafische werkplaatsen van de academie
ontstaan in 1939 ook de
eerste litho’s. In formeel
opzicht blijven deze pogingen nog achter bij de etsen
uit dezelfde tijd. Pas in de
reeks lithografische prenten die hij het jaar daarop
maakte bij de (door Jorn
uit het Frans in het Deens
vertaalde) Chinese gedichten van de Jadefluit, met
hun door de kalligrafische
impuls van de schriftre-
gels verrijkte ‘informele’
achtergrond, begint Jorn
eigen beeldende ideeën
op te bouwen.
de lijnenstructuur van het
zwart-wit, en heeft hij de
prenten achteraf deels ingekleurd.
Alle werken waarover we
hier hebben gesproken
bleven tot zwart-wit beperkt. Kleur vindt in het
grafische werk van Asger
Jorn aanvankelijk slechts
incidenteel en aarzelend
ingang. In 1942 onderneemt hij zijn eerste pogingen met litho’s in kleur.
Deze prenten worden nog
helemaal gedragen door
het geraamte van de tekening en de kleur krijgt
slechts een ondersteunende, puur decoratieve
functie toebedeeld. Maar
al twee jaar later ontstaan
volwaardige
kleurenlitho’s als afzonderlijke
prenten. Toch was Jorn
kennelijk niet tevreden
met de bereikte resultaten: in de acht litho’s
die in zijn ARS-portfolio
(ARS-Verlag, Stockholm)
uit 1945 zijn gebundeld
is hij weer teruggekeerd
naar de lineaire stijl en
Vanaf 1948-49, aan het
begin van de eigenlijke
Cobra-tijd dus, concentreert hij zich weer meer
op de kleurenlitho, waarin
hij nu een medium herkent
dat bijzonder goed bij zijn
werk past; hij hanteert het
ook meer dan eens voor
catalogus- en tijdschriftomslagen en later voor
affiches. Toch is het in de
Cobra-jaren, met het rusteloze heen en weer reizen tussen Kopenhagen,
Brussel en Parijs, ondubbelzinnig de schilderkunst
die domineert. Pas als hij
in 1951 door tuberculose
wordt veroordeeld tot een
langdurig verblijf in het
sanatorium van Silkeborg
en hij het schilderen moet
opgeven, komt de grafiek
weer op de voorgrond te
staan. In Silkeborg ontwerpt hij een serie kleurige litho’s op doorslagpapier, die door de drukker
24
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 24-25
Christian Sörensen op
de steen worden overgebracht; ook maakt hij daar
in 1951 zijn eerste gekleurde linosnede.
In dezelfde tijd dat hij zijn
eerste pogingen doet om
kleur in zijn litho’s op te nemen experimenteert Jorn
in 1942 in de etstechniek
met de toepassing van de
aquatint. Die heeft echter in
zijn etsen ook later slechts
zeer sporadisch een rol gespeeld: Jorn creëerde zijn
donkere partijen, zwarte
achtergronden, duistere
lijnenstructuren en ruige
fabelwezens liever met behulp van dicht gebundelde,
sterker geaccentueerde
of dieper geëtste arceringen dan via het spel van
de toonwaarden van de
aquatint.
De eerste kleurenetsen
ontstaan pas ruim vijftien jaar later, in 1958 in
München, en het zou nog
eens dertien jaar duren
voor hij er de onvergelijkbare afdrukken van zijn
25
09-09-14 22:07
suite Entrée de Secours
(Noodingang) mee bereikte, die in 1971 in Parijs bij
Visat verschenen (met een
voorwoord van Roberto
Matta): kleurige drogenaaldetsen met sporadische en spaarzame ondersteuning van de aquatint.
Het vroege grafische werk
van Jorn verscheen in zeer
kleine oplages en vaak
vervaardigde hij alleen
proef- en tussendrukken. De grootste oplage
bedroeg vijftien exemplaren en daar waren de
épreuves d’artiste meestal
ook bij gerekend; van één
prent bestaat een oplage
van acht afdrukken.
Deze extreem kleine oplages zijn absoluut niet alleen te verklaren uit Jorns
bekende afkeer tegen
hoge oplages, net zo goed
als het feit dat er van veel
prenten alleen proefdrukken zijn niet zonder meer
betekent dat Jorn het re-
sultaat niet accepteerde.
De ware redenen zijn banaler. Ze zijn gelegen in de
armoede van die jaren van
zowel de kunstenaar zelf
als van zijn land, dat door
Duitse troepen was bezet. Toen Jorn de prenten
maakte had hij nog geen
naam opgebouwd – hij
was nog de onbekende
Asger Jörgensen – en
buiten enkele vrienden
vroeg niemand naar zijn
werk. Jorn heeft destijds
alle prenten in de ateliers
van de academie zelf afgedrukt, als de algemene
lessen voorbij waren – een
oplage buitenshuis laten
afdrukken had hij helemaal niet kunnen betalen.
Dit gaf zijn activiteiten iets
verborgens en subversiefs
en maakte zijn artistieke
arbeid in dubbele zin tot
een avontuur. Jorn hield
wel van dit conspiratieve
sfeertje. En hij heeft in die
jaren ook daadwerkelijk
niet alleen etsen en litho’s
afgedrukt: op een geheime
pers vervaardigde hij de
nummers van het verbo-
26
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 26-27
den maandblad Land og
Folk (Land en volk), een
blad van het Deense verzet tegen het regime van
de Duitse bezetter.
In 1960 publiceerde Jorn
bij Galerie Rive Gauche in
Parijs een selectie van de
etsen die in 1939 en in de jaren 1942-45 in fasen waren
vervaardigd, in een oplage
van vijftig afdrukken en
onder de titel Occupations.
In dat woord klinkt iets
door van het avontuur van
waaruit deze prenten zijn
ontstaan. Occupations
(Bezettingen) roept associaties op met de tijd dat zijn
land als een van de vele Europese landen bezet was;
het staat echter ook voor
een andere bezetting die
in die tijd plaatsvond: die
van zijn bewustzijn door de
vanuit het onbewuste naar
buiten brekende vormenwereld van spookachtige,
schaduwachtige, geestachtige boswezens die ons
door maskers en sluiers
met vele donkere ogen
aanstaren.
De portfolio Occupations
omvat 23 prenten; toen
Jorn aan het eind van de
jaren vijftig zijn vroege
grafiek weer bijeen begon
te zoeken en te ordenen
waren veel platen uit de
betreffende tijd niet meer
te vinden, en ze mogen
als verloren worden beschouwd. Wel heeft hij
in 1961 een selectie van
de etsen opnieuw uitgevoerd en – deels bewerkt
met de droge naald – als
Schweizer Suite (Zwitserse Suite) bij de uitgeverij van Otto van de Loo
in München gepubliceerd.
Deze etsen had hij in 195354 gemaakt in een dorp
aan het Meer van Genève,
waar hij direct na zijn ontslag uit Silkeborg en zijn
vertrek uit Denemarken
een langdurige herstelperiode doorbracht. Werner
Haftmann schreef de begeleidende tekst. Net als
de portfolio Occupations
omvat de Schweizer Suite
23 prenten, die nu in een
oplage van vijftig exemplaren werden afgedrukt. Oor-
27
09-09-14 22:07
spronkelijk waren ook van
deze platen slechts vijftien
afdrukken gemaakt in een
kleine drukkerij in Genève.
Onder de titel Silkeborg
Suite gaf Jorn in 1970 bij
Sörensen in Kopenhagen
de destijds op doorslagpapier vervaardigde en
slechts in proef- en tussendrukken verspreide
kleurenlitho’s uit 1952 uit,
nadat hij de stenen opnieuw had bewerkt en de
kleuren opnieuw bepaald.
Als ongewijzigde nadruk in
offset verschenen in 1970
de lithografische prenten
van de Jadefluit uit 1940
bij Larese in Sankt Gallen.
Aan de Deense vertalingen
van de Chinese gedichten
werden hier de bewerkingen van de Chinese Walasse Ting toegevoegd, in een
mengelmoes van KitchenEnglish en New Yorks slang,
die de oorspronkelijke
tekst helemaal tot lyrische
smokkelwaar verhaspelden. Daarnaast herschreef
Ting als verklarende kanttekening bij het uitgangs-
punt de tekst nog eens in
Chinese karakters. Het
plezier dat Jorn aan deze
onderneming van steeds
doorgaande metamorfosen beleefde, klinkt door in
de ironische titel die hij het
geheel gaf: Chinoiserieën.
Vanaf 1966 ontstaan in
snelle opeenvolging de
late grafische suites, die
een absoluut hoogtepunt
vormen van zijn grafische
oeuvre: deels reeksen afzonderlijke prenten zoals
de Münchense portfolio
met 27 etsen uit 1966,
waarvan de eerste prent
als leidmotief Visa Viking
heet, of de later in München
afgedrukte serie houtsnedes, deels samenhangende cycli zoals de reeds
genoemde kleurenetsen
Entrée de Secours of de
twaalf kleurenlitho’s Von
Kopf bis Fuss (Van top tot
teen), een ‘handgedrukte
nachtmerrie uit heilige
Gal, in lithografische vorm
gegoten door Asger Jorn’
en gedrukt door de ErkerPresse in Sankt Gallen
28
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 28-29
(1966-67), waarop in 1969
in Atelier Clot in Parijs de
kleurenlitho’s van de 9 Intimités Graphoglyptiques
volgden en ten slotte in
1972 de illustraties bij Halldor Laxness’ Geschichte
vom teuren Brot (Het verhaal van het dure brood),
een suite van zeven kleurenlitho’s die ook weer in
Sankt Gallen werden afgedrukt.
Jorn is relatief laat met
houtsnedes begonnen. In
1952 maakt hij de eerste
gecombineerde hout- en
linosnede, in 1954 de
eerste kleurenhoutsnede.
De prent No Birth in the
Sky (Geen geboorte in de
lucht) is echter niet meer
dan een incidentele voorbode van de obsessie voor
houtsnedes die hem in zijn
laatste jaren in haar greep
kreeg. Daaraan ging een
andere artistieke ervaring direct vooraf: die van
de collage. Die had hij in
de jaren 1968-69 weer
opgepakt met direct een
vrij grote productie. In te-
genstelling tot zijn eerdere
collagewerk, waarbij de
collage slechts de ondergrond vormde waar dan
nog een overschildering of
overtekening in gouache
of inkt overheen moest
komen, beperkt Jorn zich
nu echter strikt tot de bontgekleurde papieren waarmee hij is begonnen en
probeert een combinatie
te creëren van collage en
décollage, van samenvoegen en wegnemen, en lokt
hij zijn tweeslachtige creaties tevoorschijn uit voorzichtig gescheurde lagen
bontgekleurd papier. In dit
soort combinaties speelt
nog een tweede combinatie een rol, die van fijn
gestructureerde figuraties
– of defiguraties, zoals hij
ze ook noemde – met grote
monochrome vlakken met
hoekige contouren: groen,
geel, oranje, rood. Deze
vormervaring voert hij in
de
kleurenhoutsnedes
nog een stap verder. Hier
speelt hij de in verschillende richtingen wijzende
nerf van het houtblok uit
29
09-09-14 22:07
als extra contrast naast
dat van de kleurvlakken
en laat die een dynamisch
element toevoegen in de
compositie.
In 1970 ontstaan in
München zestien gekleurde en zes monochrome
houtsnedes, die hij met de
hulp van assistenten zelf
vanaf het houtblok in een
oplage van 34 exemplaren
drukt en als serie van min
of meer samenhangende
afzonderlijke afdrukken
uitgeeft. Acht prenten met
de titel Euforismen – een
typisch Jorn-neologisme –
vormen daarbij een ‘suite
in de suite’.
De bekoring van de
Münchense houtsnedes,
die met de hand zijn ingekleurd en afgedrukt, zat
in de confrontatie van de
contouren, in het hard tegen elkaar plaatsen van
de afzonderlijke kleurvlakken, waarbij alleen bij
uitzondering twee kleuren
over elkaar heen werden
gedrukt. In de in Parijs afgedrukte prenten worden
de opgebrachte kleuren
gevarieerd (en genuanceerd) door ze te benadrukken of te laten bleken
en verlopen, de confrontatie tussen de vormen te
verzachten door meerdere
lagen over elkaar heen te
drukken en het oppervlak
van de prenten zachter,
lichter, fluweliger te maken zonder dat daarbij het
hout-karakter van de drager naar de achtergrond
wordt gedrongen.
Het jaar daarop maakt
Jorn in Parijs nog eens zestien houtsnedes, waarvan
hij er twaalf bundelt tot
een portfolio Études et
Surprises (Studies en verrassingen) Deze Parijse
houtsnedes worden door
zijn vriend Peter Bramsen
op de lithografische pers in Voor Jorn heeft de saeen oplage van 75 exem- menwerking met de amplaren afgedrukt.
bachtslieden in de druk30
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 30-31
kerijen een bijzondere
rol gespeeld. Hij vatte
het vervaardigen van een
grafisch werk altijd op als
een hechte samenwerking tussen kunstenaar en
drukker. De twee moeten
elkaar zonder veel woorden begrijpen; de drukker
moet de intenties van de
kunstenaar aanvoelen
en er zonder lange discussies in meegaan. Als
zo’n vertrouwensrelatie
niet mogelijk bleek, verruilde Jorn de werkplaats
al snel voor een andere.
Als de relatie door een of
ander incident verstoord
raakte, kon hij ook een al
jarenlang bestaand contact verbreken. Toen hij
in zijn tijd in Silkeborg zin
kreeg heel grote litho’s te
maken die op meerdere
stenen moesten worden
afgedrukt en vervolgens
samengevoegd,
wierp
Sörensen bezwaren op
– Jorn stapte over naar
Permild & Rosengreen, die
zijn intenties wel oppikten.
Met enkelen van zijn drukkers – bijvoorbeeld met
Permild in Kopenhagen en
Bramsen in Parijs – onderhield hij hartelijke vriendschapsbanden.
Jorn had deze vertrouwensband met de drukker
nodig. Jorn heeft altijd
graag gereisd, wisselde
vaak en abrupt tussen zijn
verblijfplaatsen in Laesø,
Colombes, Albisola, München of Milaan, en was
veel onderweg. Hoe uitgebreid hij zich ook met de
drukprocessen bemoeide,
altijd kwam toch weer
het moment dat hij wilde
opbreken en iets anders
beginnen. Dan moest de
drukker het werk zelf kunnen afmaken, hij moest in
de gaten hebben waar zich
problemen voordeden en
bereid zijn eventueel zeer
snel een afdruk na te zenden naar het nieuwe adres
en instructies in te winnen.
Deze innerlijke onrust, het
meest tastbaar uitgedrukt
in de vele reizen en in het
voortdurend wisselen van
verblijfplaats, kenmerkt
31
09-09-14 22:07
het hele oeuvre van Jorn,
zijn steeds opnieuw overschakelen naar andere
beeldende
technieken
wanneer hij dacht dat een
bepaalde techniek niets
meer kon opleveren.
Het is werkelijk alsof hij
door een niet aflatende
stroom beelden werd gedreven en door de kansen
op nieuwe visuele ervaringen naar andere plaatsen
en naar steeds weer andere ondernemingen werd
gelokt. Men kan Ursula
Schmitt alleen maar gelijk geven als ze zegt dat
Jorn een door zijn visioenen bezeten kunstenaar
is geweest. Laten we de
betreffende passage uit
haar essay in zijn geheel
citeren; de conclusie ervan voert ons naar het hart
van zijn artistieke bestaan.
A sger Jor n is beze ten van beelden ; hij
wordt gedreven door
een rusteloze verbeeldingskracht. Zijn werk
is in de vloed van aanstormende
beelden
altijd jachtig van aard
en heef t af en toe iets
trance-achtigs in de
formele beteugeling
van zijn alle kanten
opschietende verbeelding. Hij wordt gered
door zijn technische
bedrevenheid en de
gave van de improvisatie, die het direct
bij de hand liggende
middel tot gewillig instrument maakt. (…)
– Jorns verbeelding
draait in kringen rond
de verschijningstoestand van de dingen,
die met een van zijn
zelfbedachte uitdrukkingen het best te
omschrijven is als
‘chaosmos’. Hij legt
graag zijn hand op het
beeld van de dingen in
het stadium van hun
ontstaan, als het nieuw
is, als men zich er nog
over kan verbazen,
verwonderen, er ook
bang van kan worden,
en het nog niet door
de gewenning van de
blik is afgesleten, als
32
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 32-33
het zich nog in ‘rauwe
toestand’ bevindt met
de sporen van zijn oorsprong er nog op, die
het beeld steeds weer
dreigen te overdekken.
Op dit kritieke punt
begint voor hem zijn
eigenlijke ar tistieke
experiment : beproeven hoe ver de grenssteen van de vormgeving vooruitgeschoven
kan worden in het ongevormde. Want Jorn
is er van over tuigd
dat hoe dichter hij bij
het ontstaan van een
beeld blijf t, hoe directer en ef fectiever hij
het beeld kan bezielen met de vir tuele lading die het bevat als
belichaming van het
levende en het meest
wezenlijk spirituele.
Deze gedachte was
voor zowel de schilderkunst als de grafiek
bepalend. De preparatie van de ondergrond
speelt daarbij een dienende rol. (…) Zeer
verhelderend in dit
verband zijn bepaalde
procedés in zijn grafische werk. Tijdens het
drukproces ontstaan
steeds weer varianten
– unica’s – waarin Jorn
niet alleen de kleuren,
maar ook de drukvolgorde van de plaat
of de steen verander t
in vergelijking met de
definitieve staat. Als
bij een zoekplaatje
komt de afbeelding nu
werkelijk in beweging,
een beweging die de
blik vrij zicht geef t op
de beeldrijkdom die in
de afzonderlijke lagen
verborgen ligt. Met
deze mogelijkheid tot
parafraseren biedt de
drukgrafiek een voortref felijk en door Jorn
graag gebruikt middel, het vir tuele, het
ook-nog-mogelijke en
meerduidige van het
beeld dat hem bezighoudt, nu werkelijk
zichtbaar in het spel
te brengen.
33
09-09-14 22:07
Onder de grote grafici uit
de
kunstgeschiedenis
bewonderde Jorn vooral
Rembrandt,
Francisco
Goya, Honoré Daumier
en Henri de ToulouseLautrec; als directe voorgangers vermeldde hij
altijd weer James Ensor
en Edvard Munch, waarbij vooral Ensors onuitsprekelijk hallucinerende
lijnen, zoals Werner Haftmann ze ooit noemde, de
inspiratie hebben gevormd
voor zijn etsen in de reeks
Occupations, misschien
zelfs nog meer voor de etsen van de latere Schweizer Suite en voor enkele
prenten uit de reeks etsen onder het motto Visa
Viking uit het midden van
de jaren zestig, terwijl de
kunst van Munch beslissende aanzetten heeft gegeven in zijn kleurenlitho’s
en vooral zijn kleurenhoutsnedes.
In de etsen van Jorn verbindt de bizarre fantasie
van Ensor zich met het
‘droomachtig-expressie-
ve’ van Munch. Het is alsof
Ensors figuren uit de benauwdheid van hun Vlaamse stadje naar de noordse
bossen van Munch zijn verhuisd. De elkaar verdringende maskers, de optocht
van de veelkoppige massa,
ze lijken overgeplant naar
de middernachtszon, verplaatst naar het mistige
weefsel van de zonverlichte nachten rond het midzomerfeest; ze zijn verstrikt
geraakt in het kreupelhout
en worden omringd door
een troep dwergen en trollen. Waar in Jorns etsen
een van Ensor afgeleide
complexe en rafelige lijnenstructuur overheerst,
roepen de lijnenvloed en
de vloeiende kleurigheid
van de litho’s associaties
op met Munchs ornamentele pathos.
Als we de grafiek van Jorn
in de kunstgeschiedenis
willen plaatsen, moet naast
de herkomst uit de traditie
van een noordse expressieve fantasiewereld ook
een zekere verwantschap
34
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 34-35
worden vermeld met de
positie die Max Ernst innam. Dat lijkt op het eerste gezicht verrassend.
Behoort het niet tot de
eigenzinnig-rebelse verdienste van Max Ernst dat
hij in de anti-houding van
Dada zijn eigen individuele
expressieve benadering
achter zich heeft gelaten
en een ‘indirect’ procedé
heeft ontwikkeld voor het
bedenken en maken van
beelden?
Juist dit ‘indirecte’ procedé moet hier worden
besproken. Zo worden bij
frottage – om die als voorbeeld te nemen, over grattage en decalcomanie zou
hetzelfde kunnen worden
gezegd – texturen uit de
uiterlijke werkelijkheid (de
nerf van hout, het patroon
van sjablonen, de verwikkeling van draden) door
wrijven geabstraheerd en
af en toe met andere, op
dezelfde wijze verkregen
texturen gecombineerd.
De aldus ontstane ondergrond vormt echter nog
niet het beeld zelf maar
levert er slechts de aanzet
toe, brengt de fantasie van
de kunstenaar op gang en
wijst een bepaalde richting aan; aandachtig onderzoekt hij nu welke wezens zich in de vastgelegde
structuren willen tonen.
Asger Jorn onderwerpt
de achtergronden van
zijn beelden echter aan
eenzelfde interpretatiedwang! Zoals Max Ernst
in de vlakken die zich door
de frottage techniek aftekenden op zoek ging naar
aanzetten tot figuratie,
om die dan verder op weg
te helpen, zo probeerde
Asger Jorn de sporen te
ontcijferen van de schepsels die verstrikt waren
geraakt in de lijnenvloed,
in de wirwar van streken
of in de kleurbanen op zijn
steen of plaat. Het verschil zit hem in de manier
waarop deze ondergronden tot stand komen: bij
Max Ernst door middel
van zijn ‘indirecte’ procedé, waarin de kunstenaar
35
09-09-14 22:07
in deze fase van zijn werk
slechts de rol van waakzame waarnemer krijgt
toebedeeld, en bij Asger
Jorn door de niet-doelgerichte beweging van
de hand – een soort écriture automatique – die, de
lichtste impulsen volgend,
met graveernaald, etsnaald of lithografisch krijt
een lijnenstructuur neerschrijft, ritmische patronen vastlegt, wisselende
beeldzones produceert.
Het verschil zit ook in het
temperament waarmee
deze ondergronden door
de fantasie van de kunstenaar worden geïnterpreteerd en beladen met
een associatieve betekenis. Daar heeft de rusteloze hand van de graficus
dus energieke lijnen neergeschreven, een lijnenstructuur in de koperplaat
gekrast, de vlakken met
dichtere en donkerdere
partijen bedekt. Beweegt
daar iets? Hier kan een
contour worden versterkt,
daar een vorm worden
gesloten. Is dat niet de
kop van een adelaar? Nu
tekent Jorn er een oog
in – en plotseling lijkt alles wel geëlektrificeerd.
Hoogspanning trekt door
de hele plaat en krijgt de
meest afgelegen lijn in
haar greep.
Dat ene punt dat zich als
oog heeft geopenbaard
nodigt alle andere punten en lijnen uit met associaties, roept honderd
andere ogen op, verlevendigt het struikgewas van
lijnen, geeft betekenis
aan de merkwaardigste
creaties en de meest verborgen kleuren en maakt
ze veelduidig leesbaar.
Jorn heeft de schaduwlijn
overschreden, de grens
van het louter esthetische,
die smalle scheidslijn, en
heeft zijn doel bereikt.
36
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 36-37
Wieland Schmied (1929 – 2014) was
een Oostenrijkse kunsthistoricus en
–criticus, literatuurwetenschapper en
schrijver.
Vertaling van de Duitstalige tekst die
verscheen in de uitgave Werkverzeichnis Druckgraphik, Galerie Van de Loo,
München, 1976. Redacteur: Jürgen
Weihrauch
themselves be frightened
off or captivated was
their business.
THE
GRAPHIC
ARTIST
ASGER
JORN
Asger Jorn did not wish
people to have too precise an idea of who
he was. Once we had
formed an impression of
him, he slipped out of our
grasp again. He never let
himself be pinned down
to specific artistic statements or techniques.
Wieland
Schmied
Asger Jorn loved difficulties. If there were none,
he created them, for himself and others. He loved
erecting obstacles in his
work – whether people
experienced them as
obstacles or as a challenge to be overcome
was left to the individual.
He loved startling people
time and time again with
something unexpected
– whether the public let
Asger Jorn produced
paintings, watercolours
and drawings, murals
and miniatures, sculptures in stone, bronze
and clay, etchings, lithographs and woodcuts,
gouaches, collages, tapestries and ceramics; he
was always gathering
groups of artists around
him, inspiring them and
backing them, he set up
a dedicated museum for
the works of his friends
and installed three old
hands as directors, he
collated evidence of
Scandinavian folk art and
37
09-09-14 22:07
founded an Institute for
Comparative Vandalism,
he photographed and
wrote about examples of
medieval frescos, carvings in stone and wood,
and monuments from
non-European cultures,
he went on trips to see
some or other northern
stave church, he printed
Resistance publications,
he translated poems and
designed posters for the
May 1968 uprising in
Paris, he wrote essays,
he published books and
portfolios of work, he
took a stance regarding his time, others and
himself in an exceptionally wide variety of forms.
This was a man who lived.
lived
Blessed with irrepressible vitality and guided
by an infallible instinct,
he seized on this life as
a great adventure and
an opportunity to engage
with people, explore connections and make a
lasting impact. Haunted
by a roaming curiosity,
he threw himself into the
most obscure studies;
ruled by the desire to
experiment, he tried his
hand at the most diverse
techniques in art.
In 1952 he wrote a
book, Held og Hasard
(Luck and Chance, published in German in 1966
with the title Gedanken
eines Künstlers), while
stranded in Silkeborg
Sanatorium, in which he
reflected defiantly on his
work. Some examples of
the programmatic headings give an indication
of the tenor of Jorn’s
artistic ideas: Aesthetics construed as an
interest in the unknown ; Aesthetics as
curiosit y and amazement ; Aesthetics as
excitement, surprise
or shock; Aesthetics
as celebration, inebriation or liberation ;
Aesthetics as inspiration, excitement or
spontaneit y. For all
that these lines speak
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 38-39
of aesthetics, in the final analysis Jorn was
not so much interested
in a new system of aesthetics as in protesting
against the old system.
For new art could only
be created through revolt, scepticism and opposition. Jorn wanted to
disrupt conventions, unsettle habitual behaviour
and spread unrest, and
what was better suited
to this than art, the art he
sought to make throughout his life? Life and art
were one and the same
to him.
Talking about Asger Jorn
means talking about the
necessity of art. This is
the first feeling conveyed
by his work when we
examine it more closely: the necessity of art.
His paintings and prints
come from an awareness
in which art is the primary criterion and point
of reference for everything that happens,
everything that we do,
everything that we experience. But that word
‘awareness’ is far too limited. Like water bubbling
from a spring, these pictures come just as much
from the subconscious,
from the human psyche
that cannot be divided
up neatly into zones of
varying levels of awareness. For Jorn, art was
not something esoteric
or isolated, it was not a
matter for museums or
the elite. Art for him was
the most self-evident
of activities, the play of
children, the gateway
to the erotic, the footprint of our lives. It was
the most natural and the
most necessary thing, as
necessary as the air we
breathe, as necessary as
food, warmth and companionship – and perhaps more necessary still.
In his early Parisian years
(in 1937 and again from
1947), Jorn had lived by
art alone. Not by selling
his art, but by producing it, living off his black
39
09-09-14 22:07
pictures and black coffee,
black cigarettes and a little red wine. The scrawls
that children make with
crayons and chalk on
paper or pavements, the
inscriptions scratched
on church or urinal walls,
whether two hundred
years ago or yesterday,
were just as interesting
and important to him as
the figures and gestures
in Rembrandt’s etchings:
unequivocal messages
by people that everyone
understands who lives
with art and loves art.
To him, art was an irrefutable statement and
vital impulse of our very
being. Art for Asger Jorn
was not the assured result but the ceaseless
questioning, not the fixed
goal but the permanent
departure.
In all of his artworks he
went beyond his own person and his own wishes,
disregarded and eliminated all his conscious
intentions, surpassed his
powers, disguised himself and formed an alliance with chance against
himself. In Jorn’s opinion,
art that was not an adventure and where the
outcome was not uncertain, where the artist was
not constantly putting his
person and his work on
the line, was not worthy
of the name ‘art’. He was
interested in spontaneity, not corrections, perpetually taking risks, not
routine. There are few
artists where the dividing line between success
and failure is as fine as
it is with Jorn. Time and
again, he paid for the
instinctive certainty of
his masterpieces with
utter disasters when he
wanted to add some final
enhancements to a picture and spent too long
on it. On the other hand,
so often the weakening
or deviation of his will led
to victory for his figures
and the triumph of his
art, as if the world had
40
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 40-41
intervened and refused
to allow the artist to continue his work beyond its
secret goal.
priate or important), the
world saw him initially as
a painter, and it was the
message of his paintings
that his contemporaries
The complex quality of first picked up on.
Asger Jorn’s paintings
and graphic arts derives That is no coincidence
not least from this guid- and can certainly not be
ance by his instinctive explained purely by the
powers, from this sup- traditional hierarchy of
pression of conscious the artistic disciplines in
ideas, producing com- which painting is ranked
pleteness even in what is highest. Jorn is one of the
unfinished, objectivity in great colourists among
expressiveness, the sug- post-war artists. He had
gestion of his individual a instinctive assurance
mythologies.
in his handling of colour
and of all his talents, his
aptitude with colour was
certainly the most outEven if the different op- standing and most striktions for artistic expres- ing.
sion were immediately of
fundamental significance If Asger Jorn’s fame as a
to Jorn and welcome to painter is justified, he is
him from the start as op- without question equally
portunities to bring faces deserving of his almost
from the nocturnal zones as elevated status as a
into the light of day (or graphic artist, the creator
perhaps he simply saw of black-and-white and
the materials and media colour etchings, lithothat happened to be to graphs and woodcuts.
hand as the most appro41
09-09-14 22:07
Jorn had a very high
opinion
of
graphic
art and what it could
achieve. Working with
the techniques of graphic
art - with burins, copper
plates and acids, with
knives and wood blocks was as much, or almost
as much, of an existential
experience as working
with brushes, paints and
canvas. This work could
not be replaced by any
other method, the result
could not be imitated using any other technique.
In each graphic print,
Jorn sought to achieve
what could not be
achieved by any other
technique or medium; his
early etchings are different to the drawings from
the same period, his colour lithographs are not
copies of paintings, and
he obtained results in his
late colour woodcuts and
drypoint etchings that
go beyond his works in
other categories. It may
have been precisely the
resistance offered by the
unwieldy technical procedures with woodcarving knives and etching
needles that inspired him
to work with a greater intensity.
was a pleasure for him
to work in the workshop,
a pleasure he savoured
at length and in depth,
and he struck up sincere friendships with his
printers.
Jorn thought each graphic print should represent
something unique that
he had never made before and that would never be repeated. He would
have preferred it if each
individual copy was different to all other copies. That is why he kept
the number of prints
of an edition as low as
possible, and this also
explains the relatively
high number of trial and
status proofs. Jorn was
nearly always present
in the printer’s workshop when the plates or
stones were being set
up, trying out different
colour combinations or
a different sequence of
plates or stones, adding
and removing, revising
and experimenting. It
As regards the small
number of prints he allowed to be produced,
Jorn had his own theory
of the economics of art:
he believed the world had
only a limited capacity for
his work, so the smaller
the edition, the greater
the chance of him being
able to produce further
graphic prints. He did not
want his work hanging
above everyone’s sofa.
42
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 42-43
up’, the technical process had to become second nature to him before
unexpected discoveries
could be made and new
fabulous creatures could
emerge from the plate,
wood block or stone.
Even if the absorption or
resumption of a graphical procedure at a certain point in time meant
a new artistic experience
for Jorn in which he tried
to go beyond what he
had achieved in the past
in each series of graphic
prints, he was still constantly being caught by
those old images, however many transformations
and metamorphoses they
Jorn loved the small print underwent.
editions and he loved the
en suite work, even if the I t is always t he s ame
series of prints often did cur ren t of images
not conform to the re- sus t aining bot h t he
quirements of a linked pain ting s and t he
cycle. There are very few gr aphic ar t s, wrote
single, isolated prints Ursula Schmitt in her esby him. He had to make say on Jorn as a graphic
several starts in order artist in the Kestnergeto get properly ‘warmed sellschaft
exhibition
43
09-09-14 22:07
catalogue of 1973. T he
pr oces sing of t he
mater ial to create a
source pregnant with
images that brings
for th his imaginative world is also the
same. Whether he
uses canvas, copper
plates or lithographic
stones, there is always that free, playful, improvised motion of his tools and
media to which Jorn
surrenders in order to
find the point of depar ture of the picture
that he slowly causes to emerge from
the initially indeterminate background.
There is something
of the visionary skills
of the shaman in his
handling of the visual material, poking
about in the ashes
to reveal wondrous,
magical things. What
Jorn exposes on the
picture plane is somewhere between daydream and nightmare,
a world of fantastical
figures that are located in the sphere of
myths and magic, idiosyncratic hybrid creations - the spawn of
a deeply troubled fantasy and an animistic
response to nature
- up to their tricks,
par t visionar y, par t
haunting, somewhere
between bedevilment
and
enchantment,
drama and farce. In
this visual world,
Jorn shows himself to
be a later descendant
of this primitive race
that tried to capture
the fear and shock
of the unknowability
of fate in shapes and
signs. At the same
time, his work is alive
with that ancient conception of nature as
having a soul that is
typical of the nor th.
To sum up, this is the
common set of images that feeds both
Jorn’s paintings and
44
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 44-45
his graphic ar t. Especially in the early years,
when he was still hesitantly feeling his way in
the development of his
world of images, he frequently used the theme of
an image as the starting
point for a graphic work,
or he continued with the
motif from a graphic work
in a painting, not in order
to repeat it but to explore
the new aspects he could
enjoy using these different techniques.
Later, there was a sharper
dividing line between the
two in the content and representational sources, and
the parallels to be found in
places were more formal,
such as the colourfulness
of a series of lithographs
and a sequence of paintings from the same period,
or the parallels between
the block-like expanses in
the late collages and the
woodcuts he created afterwards.
The catalogue of graphic
works by Asger Jorn compiled by Jürgen Weihrauch
mentions more than 430
items in forty years. From
a purely quantitative perspective, this is a mere
fraction of his oeuvre in
paintings, even though a
number of the items in the
graphic art catalogue are
a summary reference to
the illustrations accompanying a text or sheets
of graphic art bound in
a book; for Guy Atkins
recorded more than 800
pictures in just the first
volume of the catalogue
raisonné dedicated to the
paintings, Jorn in Scandinavia, which ends in
1953.
Asger Jorn’s graphic
work comprises linocuts,
lithographs, etchings using a wide variety of techniques, woodcuts and
a few screen prints created for exhibition posters. Jorn was not fond of
screen printing as it did
not do what he demand-
45
09-09-14 22:07
ed of original graphic art own way, with evil laughand did not leave enough ter or in open revolt.
scope for his love of experimentation.
As early as 1933, there
were
black-and-white
Jorn started making li- etchings produced as
nocuts in 1932, with private illustrations to
four small prints of por- a book by Richard Gantraits of his siblings. He drup that he loved. One
was eighteen and had of them is reminiscent in
already produced his its misty, haunted atmosfirst experiments in phere of Knut Hamsun’s
paint – small landscapes Mysteries and its eccenand portraits. This was tric protagonist Johan
followed by a series Nilsen Nagel, scraping
of sixteen linocuts in a few notes on his vio1933, the ‘blasphemous lin, while surely the other
Christmas carols’, which picture shows us Hamhe made for a Marxist sun’s figure from Hunger
monthly magazine. The wandering through the
individual pictures show streets of old Christiana
the first lines of vari- as in a restless, feverish
ous Christmas carols in dream. Then there was
combination with imag- a break of four years in
es that give an ironic or which Jorn did not proaggressive commentary duce any graphic art. He
on the words. If we con- was now in Paris, worksider them more closely, ing in Le Corbusier’s stuwe can already see (al- dio and in Léger’s Acadbeit in a realistic guise) emie Contemporaine
Contemporaine. The
the drunken spectres of two etchings we have
his later pictures roam- from this period, nude
ing around and celebrat- studies, seem rather to
ing the Holy Night in their have been compulsory
46
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 46-47
exercises that were
done with reluctance. He
abandoned both that and
his teacher’s studio with
equal haste – he had not
yet found the right balance between freedom
and discipline.
In the same year, 1937,
he produced a linocut of
an abstract shape that
seemed so three-dimensional that it could have
been by Moore or Arp. The
dancing figures reduced
to rhythmic ciphers that
he drew in 1938 seem
to waver somewhere between Arp and Miró. They
were illustrations for the
book Pigen i Ilden (The
Girl in the Fire) with clichéd line drawings on top
of tonal areas created using linocuts.
Asger Jorn once said
in an interview that his
proper etching period
started in 1939 at the
Royal Academy of Fine
Arts in CopenhagenCharlottenborg. He at-
tended the graphic arts
school there. The daily
lessons only took up a
few hours, leaving plenty
of time in the afternoon
to improvise and experiment in the workplaces,
working alone and on his
own initiative. His first
etchings, featuring lively
line-drawn figurations,
clearly reflect his influences at that time – Klee
and Miró – but soon Scandinavian vegetation was
sprouting up on all sides,
next to, underneath and
between the figures,
with tufts of grass, moss,
weeds, bushes and lines
of undergrowth covering
the plate, until this world
of forms so overwhelms
his sources of inspiration
that Miró turns into Jorn.
This mesh of lines and
dashes of undergrowth
that extend across the
copper plate, sometimes
becoming so entangled
that they form an inextricable knot, sometimes
opening up, as if part of
47
09-09-14 22:07
a never-ending fabric,
constitutes the evocative background; these
lines were unintentionally jotted down or came
spontaneously from the
artist, whose associative
impulses intervened to
elucidate and encourage
and to let dormant seeds
germinate a little further,
awakening to become
suggestive ciphers.
Jorn’s first lithographs
were also created in the
Academy’s graphic art
workplaces in 1939. In
formal terms, these attempts lagged behind
the etchings of the same
period. Jorn only started
to experiment with his
own pictorial inventions
in the series of lithograph
sheets produced the following year to illustrate
the Chinese poems of the
Jade Flute (which Jorn
translated from French
into Danish), with their ‘informal’ background taking
inspiration from the calligraphy of the lines of verse.
All the work we have discussed here was in black
and white only. At first,
colour only found its way
into Asger Jorn’s graphical work hesitantly and
on rare occasions. He
did his first experiments
with colour lithographs
in 1942. The drawing still
constituted the framework for these prints,
with colour having a secondary, purely decorative
function. However, he
produced single sheets
that were full-colour lithographs only two years
later. Yet Jorn was clearly not satisfied with the
results he achieved: in
the eight lithographs collated in his ARS-Mappe
(portfolio,
ARS-Verlag,
Stockholm) of 1945, he
returned to the linear
style and structure of
dashes of his black-andwhite work, although he
did partly colour in the
sheets by hand afterwards.
48
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 48-49
From 1948-49 onwards
(in other words, from the
start of the actual Cobra
period), he concentrated
again more on colour lithography, now seeing
this as a medium particularly well suited to his
work. He used it repeatedly too for catalogue
covers, magazine covers and later for posters.
Even so, his Cobra years,
during which he was
constantly shifting between Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels and
Paris, were clearly dominated by painting. It was
only in 1951, when tuberculosis forced him to
spend a long time in the
sanatorium in Silkeborg,
where he had to give up
his painting, that graphic
art once again played a
key role. In Silkeborg, he
designed a series of colour lithographs on transfer paper that the printer
Christian Sörensen transferred to stones. He also
made his first colour linocuts there in 1951.
In 1942, at the same time
as his first trials with
colour in his lithographs,
Jorn was also experimenting with the use of
aquatint in his etching
technique. However even
later on, this only played
a role in his etchings on
rare occasions: rather
than playing with the
tonal values of aquatint,
Jorn always preferred to
create his darkness, his
black foundations, his
shadowy undergrowth
of lines, his bushy fabulous creatures by means
of dashes etched closer
together, more heavily or
more deeply.
The first etchings in colour appeared more than
fifteen years later, in 1958
in Munich, and it would
take another thirteen
years before he achieved
the incomparable results
of his Entrée de Secours
(Emergency Entrance) series, which was published
in Paris by Visat (with a
foreword by Matta) – dry-
49
09-09-14 22:07
point etchings in colour
with the occasional sparing use of aquatint in a
supporting role.
Jorn’s early graphic work
appeared in tiny editions;
in fact, often only state
proofs and trial proofs
were produced. The largest editions consisted of
fifteen prints and that
usually included the artist’s proofs; there is one
sheet with an edition of
eight prints.
These very small editions
cannot be explained entirely by Jorn’s known
dislike of large editions,
just as the fact that he
only produced trial proofs
of many plates definitely
does not mean that Jorn
did not approve of the result.
The reasons are more
mundane. They lie in the
poverty of those years,
both of the artist and of
his country, which was
occupied by German
troops. Jorn had not yet
built up a reputation when
he made these plates –
he was still the unknown
Asger Jörgensen – and
nobody was interested
in his work except for a
couple of friends. In that
period, Jorn printed all
his sheets in the Academy’s studio himself after
the general lessons had
finished – he would never
have been able to afford
to have an edition printed
professionally. This gave
his actions something
hidden and subversive
and turned his artistic
work into an adventure
in two senses. Jorn loved
this clandestine atmosphere. Indeed, he not
only printed etchings and
lithographs during these
years, he also produced
issues of the underground monthly Land og
Folk (Land and People),
a publication of the Danish Resistance movement,
on a secret printing press.
50
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 50-51
In 1960, Jorn published
a selection of the etchings produced in batches
in the years 1939 and
1942 to 1945 in an edition of fifty prints entitled Occupations for the
Galerie Rive Gauche in
Paris. That title resonates
with the sense of adventure that accompanied
the production of these
sheets. Occupations recalls the period in which
his country, like so many
other countries in Europe,
was occupied, but he
was also referring to the
occupation at that time
of his consciousness by
the spectral, shadowy,
ghostly creatures of the
woods breaking out of
his unconscious world
of shapes, whose many
dark eyes inspect us
through masks and veils.
The Occupations portfolio
consists of twenty-three
sheets; many plates from
this period could no longer be found when Jorn
started looking for his
early graphic works and
putting them in order in
the late 1950s, and they
must be considered lost.
In a similar approach, he
took the etchings he produced in 1953-54, immediately after being discharged from Silkeborg,
when he left Denmark
for a relatively long convalescence in a village
on Lake Geneva, and after partially reworking
them with a needle, he
released a selection in
1961 as the Schweizer
Suite (Swiss Suite), published by Otto van de
Loo in Munich. Werner
Haftmann wrote the accompanying text. Like
the Occupations portfolio,
the Schweizer Suite portfolio consisted of twentythree sheets printed in
a limited edition of fifty
copies. Originally, only
fifteen copies were produced from these plates
by a small printing business in Geneva.
In 1970, Jorn published
the colour lithographs
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09-09-14 22:07
that had been produced
on transfer paper back
in 1952 and only distributed in the form of trial
and state proofs through
Sörensen in Copenhagen
as the Silkeborg Suite after he had reworked the
stones and respecified
the colours.
The Jade Flute lithographs from 1940 were
published by Larese in
St. Gallen in 1970 as
unaltered reprints using
offset printing. Here, the
free adaptations of the
Chinese poems by the
Chinese Walasse Ting
were added to the Danish
versions. Ting’s adaptations were a mixture of
pidgin English and New
York slang that totally
transformed the original text, turning it into
lyrical contraband. Ting
also rewrote the texts
using Chinese characters as a commentary on
the starting point. The
pleasure Jorn took in this
enterprise with the per-
petual metamorphoses
reverberates in the ironic
title he gave to the entire
endeavour: Chinoiserie.
The late suites of graphical works appeared in
quick succession from
1966 on. They signify an
absolute high point in
his graphic art. Some of
these are series of single sheets, such as the
1966 Munich portfolio
with twenty-seven etchings, the first sheet of
which reveals the leitmotif with its title of Visa Viking, or the sequence of
woodcuts printed later in
Munich, while others are
linked series such as the
Entrée de Secours colour etchings mentioned
above or the twelve colour
lithographs Von Kopf bis
Fuß (From Head to Toe),
a ‘hand-made Alp print1
from Saint Gallen, fashioned as lithographs by
Asger Jorn’ and printed
by the Erker Press in St.
Gallen (1966-67), which
was followed by the 9
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Intimités
Graphoglyptiques (9 Graphogliptic
Intimacies), colour lithographs for Atelier Clot in
Paris in 1969, and finally
in 1972 the illustrations
for Halldor Laxness’s Die
Geschichte vom teuren
Brot (The Story of the Expensive Bread), a suite of
seven colour lithographs
that were also printed in
St. Gallen.
Jorn started using woodcuts relatively late on. He
made his first combined
woodcut and linocut in
1952 and his first colour
woodcut in 1954. However the sheet No Birth in
the Sky is nothing more
than a faint premonition
of the obsession with
woodcuts that would
take hold of him in his
final years. This was immediately preceded by
another artistic experience, that of collage. He
had taken this up again
in 1968-69, producing
a relatively large batch.
However contrary to his
earlier endeavours with
collage in which it simply provided the background and required a
painting or drawing on
top in gouache or ink,
Jorn now limited himself
strictly to the given of
the multi-coloured paper;
he tried a combination
of collage and décollage,
adding and subtracting, enticing his hybrid
creatures out of carefully
torn strips of coloured
paper. Combining in this
sense was intermingled
with combining in a second sense, in which the
finely structured figurations – or defigurations,
as he sometimes called
them – were combined
with large, angular sections in a single uniform
colour: green, yellow, orange or red. He took this
experience with forms
one step further in his
colour woodcuts. Here,
he also used the grain
in the woodblock pointing in different directions
alongside the colour con-
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09-09-14 22:07
trasts, letting this intro- coloured in and printed
duce a dynamic element by hand, lay in the conin the composition.
frontation of the outlines,
which remained sepaIn 1970, he produced rate areas of colour even
sixteen colour woodcuts when most clearly pitted
and six monochrome against one another, with
woodcuts that he printed one colour overlapping
himself with some as- another only in excepsistants in an edition of tional cases. The prints
thirty-four copies and is- made in Paris bring varisued in a series of single ation (and nuances) in
prints, interlinked to var- the application of the colying degrees. Here, eight ours, emphasising them
sheets termed Euphoris- or letting them run and
men – a typically Jornian become fainter, softenword – formed a kind of ing the points where the
‘suite within a suite’.
shapes meet by superimposing prints from difIn the following year, ferent woodblocks and
Jorn produced another making the sheet surface
sixteen colour woodcuts, gentler, lighter and more
twelve of which he collat- mellow without losing the
ed in a portfolio: Études character of the wood in
et Surprises (Studies and the print substrate.
Surprises). These Parisian woodcuts were printed by his friend Bramsen
on a lithographic press in The collaboration with
an edition of seventy-five the workers in the printcopies.
ing works played an important role for Jorn. He
The appeal of the Munich always saw the producwoodcuts, which were tion of a work of graphic
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art as something that involved close cooperation
between the artist and
the printer. They had to
understand each other
without needing to utter
too many words, the printer had to surmise what
the artist wanted and
to respond to this without lengthy discussions.
If such a relationship
of trust did not develop,
Jorn soon switched to another printer’s. If the relationship was disrupted by
some kind of incident, he
was capable of severing
a contact that had lasted
for years. In Jorn’s Silkeborg period, when he felt
an urge to make very
large lithographs that
would have to be printed
and assembled from multiple stones, Sörensen
raised objections – and
Jorn turned to Permild
& Rosengreen, who accommodated his wishes.
He struck up a warm
friendship with a few of
his printers, including
Permild in Copenhagen
and Bramsen in Paris.
Jorn needed this basis of
trust in his printers. Jorn
always enjoyed travelling,
moved frequently and
without notice between
his quarters in Lasso,
Colombes,
Albisola,
Munich and Milan, and he
spent a great deal of time
on the road. However extensively he became involved in the printing process, there always came
a point when he wanted
to decamp and start
something else. Then the
printer would have to be
able to complete the task
himself, to sense where
there might be questions
and to be prepared if
necessary to send a later
print as fast as possible
to the new address and
obtain instructions.
That inner restlessness,
the most tangible sign of
which was to be found
in the constant travelling
and switching of residence, characterises all
Jorn’s work, his perpetu-
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al transitions to different
procedures for producing images whenever he
felt he had exhausted the
fruitfulness of a particular technique.
It really is as if he was
driven by an unceasing
flow of images, by the
chance of new visual
experiences in different
places, and was always
being tempted by different ventures. We can
only agree with Ursula
Schmitt when she says
that Jorn was an artist
possessed by his faces.
We could cite the corresponding passage in her
essay in full; its conclusion takes us to the heart
of his artistic existence.
Asger Jorn is poss e s sed by images ; he
is driven by a restless power of imagination. His work is always hurr ying in the
flood of images rushing along and sometimes there is also
something trancelike
in the formative repression of his rambling vision. He is
aided by his technical skill and the gif t
of improvisation that
turns the resources
that happen to be to
hand into compliant
instruments... Jorn’s
imagination
circles
around the state of
things’ appearance,
which can be best
described by the term
he himself coined of
‘chaosmos’. He liked
to work on the image of things at the
stage when they were
emerging, when they
were new, inciting
wonder, amazement
but also fear, and
had not yet become
hackneyed from having been seen so often, when they were
still in the ‘raw state’,
still tainted with the
slag from which they
had come and that
always threatened to
obscure them again.
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This was the critical
point at which his
own ar tistic experiment star ted, namely
testing how far the
boundar y point of
the process of giving shape could be
pushed back towards
the formless. For
Jorn was convinced
that the closer he remained to the genesis of an image, the
more directly and effectively he could introduce the vir tual as
the incarnation of the
animate object and
the essential spiritual agent in the image.
This concern af fected his paintings and
graphic ar t equally.
The preparation of
the picture sur face
ser ves this purpose...
– cer tain procedures
used for his graphic
prints are highly revealing. Time and
time again, variants
– unique specimens
– ensued during the
printing
process
whereby Jorn modified not only the colours but also the sequence in which the
plates or stones were
used in the process
of achieving the final
state. Like an optical
illusion, the picture
is now indeed set in
motion in a way that
uncovers the view of
the gestating hidden
image in the separate layers. With this
abilit y to paraphrase,
graphic ar t was an
excellent
medium,
and one that Jorn
liked to use, for actually bringing visibly
into play the vir tual
aspect, the alternative realit y and the
multiple meanings of
an image that so fascinated him.
Jorn particularly admired Rembrandt, Goya,
Daumier and Toulouse-
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09-09-14 22:07
Lautrec among the great
masters of graphic art
in the past. He also repeatedly
mentioned
James Ensor and Edvard
Munch as his immediate forebears: Ensor’s
‘ineffably hallucinatory
line’, as Werner Haftmann once described
it, was the inspiration in
particular for his etchings in the Occupations
suite, and even more
so the later Schweizer
Suite and several sheets
in the sequence of etchings labelled Visa Viking
in the mid-1960s, while
Munch’s art had an important impact on his
colour lithographs and
especially on his colour
woodcuts.
Jorn’s etchings unite
Ensor’s quirky fantastic world with Munch’s
‘dreamlike
expressive’
characteristics. It is as if
Ensor’s figures had relocated from the confines
of their Flemish provincial town to Munch’s
Nordic woods. His jostling masks, the procession of the many-headed
crowds, seem to have
been transported to the
land of the midnight sun
and shifted to a patchwork of mist in the daylight nights around St.
John’s Eve; they are hidden in the undergrowth
and about to swirl round
in a dance with trolls and
gnomes. If Asger Jorn’s
etchings are dominated
by a complex, unravelling
framework of dashes derived from Ensor, the flow
of lines and stream of
colour in his lithographs
recalls Munch’s ornamental pathos.
In addition to his origins
in the tradition of a Nordic expressive fantasy,
we should also mention
a certain kinship with the
positions adopted by Max
Ernst when discussing
the place Jorn’s graphic
art occupies in art history. That may seem
surprising at first glance.
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 58-59
Was it not one of Max
Ernst’s peculiar incendiary achievements to have
vanquished
individual
expressive efforts in the
anti-stance of the Dada
movement and to have
developed the ‘indirect’
procedure for discovering and creating images?
It is precisely that ‘indirect’ procedure that
should be discussed here.
For instance, in his frottage – to take one example, but the same could
be said of his grattage
or decalcomania – the
textures of the external world – the grain of
the wood, the pattern of
stencils, the interlacing
of strings – are defamiliarised by the process of
rubbing and occasionally combined with other
textures obtained in the
same manner. However
the backgrounds created in this way were
not yet the actual image;
they merely provided the
incentive, they set the
artist’s fantasy in motion, sent him in a certain direction – now he
could probe cautiously to
see what creature might
emerge from the fixed
structure.
But Jorn subjected his
own image backgrounds
to the same enforced interpretation! Just as Max
Ernst investigated the
surfaces emerging from
the process of frottage to
find hints of figures and
then help them along,
so Asger Jorn sought to
decode the traces of the
creatures that had been
captured in the current
of lines, in the maze of
dashes or in the tracks
of colour on his stones or
plates. The difference lies
in how this picture background was prepared: in
the case of Max Ernst, an
‘indirect’ procedure that
assigned to the artist at
this stage the restricted
role of alert observer, in
the case of Asger Jorn
through the unintentional
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09-09-14 22:07
movement of the hand
– a kind of automatism –
that followed the slightest
impulses with the gouge,
needle or lithographic
crayons to record a structure of lines, registering rhythmic sequences,
generating varying zones
of images. The difference
also lies in the spirit in
which these backgrounds
are interpreted by the
artistic imagination and
imbued with associative
meaning. Thus the restless hand of the graphic
artist jotted down pulsating lines, scratched a
thicket of dashes in the
copper plates and covered the surfaces with
denser, darker sections.
Is something stirring?
Perhaps an outline could
be intensified here, a
shape closed off there.
Could that be an eagle’s
head? Now Jorn has
drawn in an eye – and
suddenly everything is
electrified, a high-voltage
current speeds through
the whole plate and seiz-
es even the furthest outlying lines.
That one point that has
opened up as an eye invests all the other points
and lines with associations, calls up a hundred
other eyes, puts life in
the thicket of dashes,
makes sense of the most
outlandish shapes and
and most veiled colours
and makes them multiinterpretable. Jorn has
stepped over the shadowy barrier, the boundary
separating off the merely
aesthetic, that thin dividing line, and has reached
his destination.
Wieland Schmied (1929-2014) was an
Austrian art historian and critic, literary
theorist and author.
Translation of the original German text
from Werkverzeichnis Druckgraphik,
Gallery Van de Loo, Munich, 1976. Editor:
Jürgen Weihrauch
1 The German word ‘Alpdruck’ is a play on
words as it means both an Alp print and an
incubus.
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Marie-José
van de Loo
interviewing
Otto van
de Loo and
Jürgen
Weihrauch
4 May 2014
tunate enough to meet
this genius and great artist – purely by chance, for
at the time no-one in Germany had ever heard of
him. I actually wanted to
meet the artist François
Arnal and went round to
his home, but he wasn’t
in. However, Asger Jorn
was there, and when it
turned out that he was
an artist and I was about
to open a gallery we got
talking. The next day I
saw his pictures at his
home in Rue du Tage. I
found them both fascinating and shocking. His
painting heralded a clear
break with tradition, and
revealed a whole new
visual idiom to me.
Marie-José van de Loo:
How did you first meet Marie-José van de Loo: At
Asger Jorn?
the end of the same year
Jorn paid his first visit to
Otto van de Loo: When I Munich to paint pictures
was looking for artists for for his first exhibition at
my gallery in 1957 I went the newly opened Galerie
to Paris, which in those van de Loo. He met Hans
days was still the centre Platschek, and soon afof avant-garde, contem- terwards – on one of his
porary art, and I was for- next visits – the artists
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09-09-14 22:07
of Gruppe SPUR (SPURGroup). This encounter
was of particularly crucial importance to the
young SPUR painters,
but Jorn also benefited
from his contact with
these much younger artists. As recent graduates from the Munich
Academy of Arts they
had access to its etching
workshop. Jorn wanted
to print something there,
and it was agreed that
the Gruppe SPUR artists
would help him. The result was seven etchings
produced in collaboration with Heimrad Prem
and Hans-Peter Zimmer
(Catalogue Raisonné of
Prints, updated version
2009, Nos. 205-211). The
catalogue mentions their
sometimes inconsistent colouring.
with the printing, but felt
they were being treated
rather like ‘assistants
to the great master’. So
they printed some copies
in the wrong colours and
occasionally crooked, on
purpose, just to annoy
him. But it boomeranged
on them, for he wasn’t
in the least bit annoyed –
in fact, he liked it. Each
sheet in the print run of
fifty was now effectively
unique.
Marie-José van de Loo:
Friedhof der Maulwürfe
(Cemetery of the Moles)
– an experimental novel
by C. Caspari with eight
etchings by Asger Jorn
(CR Nos. 212-219) – was
published in 1959. At
the time the director and
writer Caspari was running a branch of Galerie
van de Loo in Essen
Jürgen Weihrauch: I (1959-61), where he met
hadn’t yet begun working Constant and developed
at the gallery, but Helmut the idea of the Labyr.
Labyr
Sturm kept telling me
that Prem and Zimmer Two years later the
did indeed help Jorn gallery published the
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 74-75
Schweizer Suite (Swiss
Suite) folder. The starting
point for this work was a
series of forty-three etchings produced in Switzerland back in the winter
of 1953-54, when Jorn
was staying there with
his family. They’d been
printed by Disteli in Geneva in a small print run
of fifteen copies (CR Nos.
133-175). The series
was extremely varied
in both theme and form.
Some, for instance, referred to the artist’s stay
in Switzerland, such as
Schweizer Garde (Swiss
Guard, CR No. 167) and
L’étranger au village
(The Stranger in the Village, CR No. 169); others
included motifs from his
painting, such as Le droit
de l’aigle (The eagle’s
Share, CR No. 159) and
Femelle interplanétaire
(Interplanetary Female,
CR No. 164). Werner
Haftmann writes There
is no cyclical structure in the sequence.
These are individual,
free improvisations
– ‘psychic improvisations’, to borrow
K lee’s term.
Jorn produced another significant series of
etchings in 1966. It was
published as Edition
van de Loo in a print run
of forty-five (WVZ 272289). These somewhat
larger sheets, with their
freer lines, had humorous French titles – Jorn
was fond of using puns in
various languages for the
titles of his works.
Otto van de Loo: One print
work of Jorn’s that I personally like very much
is the Von Kopf bis Fuß
(From Head to Toe) folder,
which contains ten large
lithographs. They are very
painterly, with great variation in colour – as Jorn
printed in handwritten
letters on the cover sheet,
‘Alpine print made by hand
from holy gall.’1 This was
published by Larese at the
Erkerpresse in St Gallen,
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09-09-14 22:07
and then released by Edi- geltal (In the Bird Valley)
tion van de Loo (WVZ 300- and Ins Unbekannte (Into
311).
the Unknown) (CR Nos.
370-373). These were
Marie-José van de Loo: In the starting point for
1970 Asger Jorn came to eighteen more woodcuts
Munich to produce a se- that were made here.
ries of woodcuts. These
were made in the base- Jorn’s working methment of the annex to the od was fascinating. He
Galerie van de Loo Forum would take thin seg– a kind of ‘action space’ ments of wood and apply
where happenings, lec- them to the printing block
tures and so forth took like a veneer. He’d never
place from 1967 to 1970, made anything like that
after which the Van de before. The individual
Loo Children’s Forum, parts were then coloured
which was founded the in different colours and
same year, moved in.
put together like pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle. This
Jürgen Weihrauch: Pre- allowed him to print sevcisely – it wasn’t a pro- eral colours in one go.
fessional print workshop,
but only had a simple Marie-José van de Loo:
hand press. The idea was He was assisted by the
that Jorn would bring a artists Rezsö Somfai and
group of four half-fin- Paco Munser. What was
ished printing blocks that their job?
he’d started on much
earlier and wanted to re- Jürgen Weihrauch: They
work and print here. The coloured the segments
titles were Einzelgänger of wood, then threw them
(Loner), Das grüne Meer together on a table. They
(The Green Sea), Im Vo- also helped with the
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 76-77
printing. Jorn usually had
everything all ready, with
a prototype for the colours – sometimes when
he couldn’t sleep he
stayed up all night carving away. I can’t remember where we got hold of
the hand press – I think it
was Rezsö that found it
for us. It was a really basic machine that couldn’t
even produce smooth
prints. That’s why we
used Japanese washi paper, so we could smooth
them out afterwards.
The small catalogue
that was published with
the woodcuts was terribly hard to print – every single illustration
in it was basically an
original woodcut.
Marie-José van de Loo:
How long did the process
take altogether?
to time. Two small wood
prints (CR Nos. 389 and
399) that were meant to
help fund the planned
catalogue of his prints
weren’t made until later.
Marie-José van de Loo:
In fact, the catalogue
wasn’t published till 1976,
three years after the artist’s death.
Otto van de Loo: In autumn 1966 I asked Asger
Jorn to let me edit, compile and publish the full
catalogue of his prints.
He said yes, and also
said he would help me,
which turned out to be of
inestimable value for the
success of this beautiful,
multifaceted publication.
So Jorn initiated a process that was completed
in the gallery after he
died.
Jürgen Weihrauch: The
woodcuts weren’t all produced in one go – Jorn
would go away from time
Marie-José van de Loo:
Mr. Weihrauch, you
played a key role in compiling and producing the
catalogue.
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09-09-14 22:07
Jürgen Weihrauch: Yes,
I was responsible for
the editing and design.
What mattered to me,
of course, was getting
things as accurate and
complete as possible, but
that wasn’t so easy, as
accuracy and completeness just weren’t Jorn’s
thing. He didn’t want perfection, and didn’t much
care whether all the details of technique, paper, print runs and so on
were correct – quite the
contrary, in fact. People
can do all that later
on, he said. And he didn’t
want a Beckmann-type
hardcover edition – no
fancy stuff.
terials already assembled. He said he
was an ‘expressionist’ painter and that
meant things did not
always go as calculated or systematically, and anyway,
the main thing was
that his catalogue of
prints should be lively and unacademic.
And so we had to…
take these wishes
of his into account…
when designing the
publication.
Marie-José van de Loo:
The great thing about this
catalogue is that it includes two original colour
lithographs, one of them
Otto van de Loo: That’s on the cover.
why I wrote in the preface: I n t h e c a t a l o g u e Jürgen Weihrauch: One
r a i s o n n é, t h e r e f o r e, day Jorn arrived on the
g a p s and mistakes overnight train with a roll
will no doubt crop of paper under his arm
up. But it amused – those two lithographs.
Asger Jorn when we They both came from
predicted this unfor- one print and dated from
tunate eventualit y in 1956, when he already
the light of the ma- had plans for a catalogue
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 78-79
of his prints. So the original cover was to be used
now, but without saying
so. There were 2000 copies, and so the print run
for the catalogue was
also 2000.
Marie-José van de Loo:
And over the years that’s
proved to be far too few.
So it’s a good thing that
a second, updated edition, in German and
English and revised by
Gerd Presler, was finally
published in Silkeborg
and Munich in 2009.2 It
includes another eightyeight prints that weren’t
in the first edition – 520
sheets in all. And it’s a
very academic publication after all, in hardcover.
Marie-José van de Loo: Daughter of
Otto van de Loo, Director of Galerie
van de Loo Projecte, Munich
Jürgen Weihrauch: Author of
Werk-verzeichnis Druckgrafik von
Asger Jorn. Edition van de Loo, 1st
impression 1976, republished in 2009.
C. Caspari (1921-2009): German
performer and artist. Ran the Essen
branch of Galerie van de Loo from
1959 onwards. Developed his radical
conceptual
architecture
‘Labyr’
together with Constant, Cage and
others.
Werner Haftmann
German art historian.
(1912-1999):
Hans
Platschek
(1923-2000),
Helmut Sturm (1932-2008), Heimrad
Prem (1934-1978) and Hans-Peter
Zimmer (1936-1992): German visual
artists.
1
Translator’s note: Aus heiliger
Galle (literally ‘from holy gall’ or ‘from
holy bile’) is a German pun on the
name of the city of St Gallen, which
was founded by the Irish monk St Gall
(or St Gallus).
2 Gerd Presler, Asger Jorn:
Werkverzeichnis der Druckgraphik /
Catalogue Raisonné of Prints, Galerie
van de Loo, Munich, and Silkeborg
Kunstmuseum, Silkeborg, 2009. ISBN
13:978-87-92307-04-0.
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09-09-14 22:07
Exhibition opening at Galerie van de
Loo, München, Maximilianstr. 25, 3
Sept 1958, contact sheets 1, 2, 3, 5, 6:
Otto van de Loo & Asger Jorn; 4, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12: Asger Jorn. Photo: Felicitas
Timpe, Munich
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ist and thinker Asger Jorn
(1914-1973), a co-founder of Cobra and one of its
driving forces, attracted
my special interest. He
was always on the move
looking for international
exchange and discussions, creating collaborative work, magazines,
and exhibitions. What I
have learned since 2010
is that Jorn, with great
thrive and ambition, also
wrote numerous books
and articles envisioning,
from an artistic point of
view, ‘the first complete
revision of the existing
After having worked ex- philosophical system’.
clusively with contemporary art for about ten In his writings Jorn comyears, I started a job as bined ideas from a wide
a curator at the Cobra variety of disciplines inMuseum of Modern Art cluding politics, physics,
in the winter of 2010. economics, philosophy,
This called for refreshing anthropology, structuralmy knowledge of Cobra, ism and art theory. The
the loose constellation way he brought these
of young left-oriented various interests together
artists and poets that in complex and unconofficially existed from ventional ideas and ways,
1948-51. The energetic in search of a compreDanish experimental art- hensive theory of art and
ASGER
JORN:
THE SECRET
OF ART
Hilde de
Bruijn
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life, appeals to me for
various reasons; especially his strong ideas on
art as not derived from
an ideology or worldview, but as the direct
expression of an attitude
towards life, belonging
to the fundamental level
of work and production.
Jorn’s views result in a
very outspoken position
in the philosophical debate about the value of
art and the position of the
artist in society. In this
perspective, art historian
Graham Birtwistle makes
the crucial observation that: (…) in placing [ ar t ] at the basis
and not in the superstructure, Jorn’s theor y gives to ar t both
a primar y role and a
cer tain independence
from
conventional
ideological idealism.1
Over the past years and
currently, the value of
art and the position of
the artist in society has
been a much discussed
topic in several European
countries. Politicians announced budget cuts and
other vigorous measures
for the cultural sector in
the light of the (ongoing)
credit crisis. I wondered
if the questions that Jorn
posed and the position
he took could still be
relevant for the analysis of our current situation. Could Jorn’s theory,
and more important
his (art) practice, give
us ‘certain independence’, as mentioned by
Birtwistle, with our society transforming at a
rapid pace from ‘market
economy’ to ‘market society’?
After reading an essay by
the Belgian sociologist
Pascal Gielen I realized
that Jorn, who had strong
political views and anticapitalist ideas, might
have shared Gielen’s perspective on the current
situation in Western society as one of ‘repressive
liberalism’.2 He defines
Asger Jorn, Gaston Bachelard, 1960
oil on canvas. Collection MDZ Art
Gallery
Knokke.
Photographer:
unknown.
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09-09-14 22:08
repressive liberalism as
a situation in which the
state embraces ‘freedom’ and the ‘free market’, whereas the control
of that freedom has in
fact increased. The result is an extremely conditional form of freedom,
or freedom as an instrument of control. Within
this, Gielen says we are
facing a situation of political dialectics replaced
by a bureaucratic middle
class that aspires to a
measurable and controllable mediocrity.3 Indeed
a contemporary echo of
Jorn’s words: F or an
elite to have real
power it mus t have
r igh t s and regulations ot her t han t he
res t of t he population, it mus t f or m an
ex t r aor dinar y or der.
A s t his monopoly is
abolished in moder n
democr atic societ y,
t he
adminis t r ative
pos t s can only be
occupied by t he bes t
among s t t he medio -
cre, chosen f r om t he
g ood citizens . T he
disor derly and t he
ex t r aor dinar y,
t he
poor and t he bes t
are excluded au to matically… . 4
Gielen also states that in
fact, the past ten years
the jargon of liberalism
has been embraced with
surprising and quite uncritical easiness, using
politically charged language (including terms
such as culture consumer, entrepreneurship,
marketing) as if it were
neutral, as if it were devoid of an ideological signature. He points out that
anyone who nowadays
opposes the rhetoric of
repressive liberalism is
labelled a naive romanticist. Isn’t this perhaps
one of the major problems with what Jorn has
to offer us as well? That
it is hopelessly romantic?
What could be distilled
or taken from Jorn’s way
of thinking to practise
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 86-87
09-09-14 22:08
a genuinely critical art it s st amp on all our
towards culture in our actions (…) . There
times?
are core life values
which can only grow
in freedom, and only
The spice
when truly free can
of life
they form a central
par t of the way we
Not surprisingly, Jorn lead our lives. 5 He
never showed any hesi- even goes as far as to
tance in advocating and claim that: There is a
claiming an essential widespread misconrole for the arts in life ception that one’s
and society. He wrote: daily bread t akes
What we are t alk- precedence over the
ing about here is ar t spice of life and that
and it s justification, we must all have
it s meaning and it s practical homes beplace in our lives and fore we can even
societ y. A r t does not st ar t thinking about
exist simply for the put ting up frivolous
enjoyment of beaut y, buildings. 6
nor to point a moral finger. Aesthet- With the above statement
ics and ethics are Jorn wasn’t simply trying
nothing more than to advocate freedom for
play things for philos- the arts for the sake of
opher s and theologi- the arts. In all his texts he
ans. A r t is a life and kept on expressing in vardeath issue ; a hu- ious ways that this freeman necessit y. What dom was essential to be
I am referring to here able to experiment and
is the creative, ar tis- consequently essential
tic urge and it s set s to the generating of new
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 88-89
knowledge. According to
Jorn, this made it crucial
for human society and
the human race to develop further. In order to
do so artists would need,
what he called f ree or
unused energ y, which
he identified as a potential scarcity in a (capitalist) society that claims all
available energy. Almost
cheekily, Jorn added that
strictly speaking, the arts
are not necessary. It only
is if one desires progress.
And if so, one of Jorn’s
prerequisites to opening
up the possibilities for
an effective utilisation
of the artistic possibilities would be that socie t y can af f or d, and
is at liber t y, to give
ar chitec t s and ar tis t s a f ree hand in
t he creation of t he
bes t envir onmen t f or
mank ind. 7
The give-and-take between artist and society was of great concern
to Jorn, as this citation
also shows. In Value and
Economy… he reflects
on the topic at length and
states that artists (and
other cultural producers) are in fact exploited
by the power elite and
that A r t and culture
ret ain only a minimal par t of the sums
that they earn 8 as artists and other makers are
not paid for their hours
of productive work. He
builds up his arguments
in great detail but it might
be most effective to present his example: I f t he
A mer icans jus t paid
accor ding to t he t arif f f or t he time t hey
occupy t hemselves
wit h Eur opean cult ure, t hen t he whole
of Eur ope could live
of f it . 9 It would be obvious to conclude that Jorn
simply argued that from
now on artists and other
makers should be paid
for their hours of productive work10 (especially as
he also stated that the
aim of his text Value and
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09-09-14 22:08
Handwritten comment by Asger Jorn in
his copy of Le Cru et le Cuit (1964) by
Claude Lévi-Strauss at Museum Jorn,
Silkeborg. Photo: Hilde de Bruijn
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 90-91
09-09-14 22:08
Economy… is to demonstrate the economic basis that ‘the creative elite’
is entitled to), but he
loved undermining and
contradicting, and his
arguments often had an
unexpected twist. In this
case he ends the very
same paragraph by saying that if what he suggests would be realized,
it would have the [I take it
as undesirable] effect of
‘stagnation of our artistic
culture’.
Jorn obviously was well
aware of the fact that
art has a lot to do with
economics, at the same
time though he often
pointed to those aspects
that can’t be measured
in money: A r t is a life
form. It is mankind’s
celebration
( and
maledictions on ) all
aspect s of life that
enliven us. A rchitecture is the framework
upon which we build
our lives but the ar t s
are the living frame-
work around life itself. A r tistic creation
is the spiritual and
psychological sea in
which we swim and
which provides lifegiving nourishment .11
It is in social interaction
and spiritual immeasurable values that we can
find what Jorn calls the
secret of ar t : The secret of ar t consist s in
the simple fact that
it is more blessed to
give than to t ake, but
also that this blessedness is dependent
upon volunt ar y giving, so that what is
given is felt as a surplus, a wealth, not a
dut y. This is the simple materialistic explanation of the value
of the ar t work and
for all other things
called spiritual values. In relation to
the practical values,
ar t is thus a countervalue, the value of
productive pleasure.
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 92-93
A r t is the goal for a
discharge of energy
without a precise
goal, except the one
that the receiver can
discover. In this way,
ar t is the source of
benevolence, is what
is called grace.12
Holistic as this may
sound, the artistic strategies that Jorn applied
make him the exemplary
model for the recalcitrant
modernist artist to whose
strategies contemporary
artists – pr oblem solver s of social pr ob lems on a micr o level
( … ) – should return, according to Pascal Gielen.
No safety, order and
comfort, no self-management disguised as cultural entrepreneurship for
the sake of calculability
and controllability,13 but
the creation of problems
and ‘creative destruction’
is what Gielen calls for.
It is true: A sger J or n
loved dif f iculties . I f
t here were none, he
created t hem, f or
himself and ot her s,
writes Wieland Schmied
in his essay elsewhere
in this publication. Risk
was also an extremely
important element in
Jorn’s thinking and strategies, and certainly not
a factor that he wanted
to reduce to acceptable
proportions, in the ‘entrepreneurial’ sense. (…) I
have never been interes ted in going any where unless I wa s
able to go all the
way to the ex treme 14,
Jorn said. Gielen’s call
for creative destruction
bears strong similarities
to Jorn’s fascination for
vandalism as a potential creative act, and his
(and those involved in the
L’Internationale Situationniste) well-known stratniste
egy of ‘détournement’
– basically the adaptation
of or variation on previous ideas or works, in
which the newly created
has a meaning that differs from the original one.
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09-09-14 22:08
These and other artistic
strategies worked very
well for Jorn and other
people he was associated
with, but as stated in the
preface of Collectivism
after modernism, recently reborn collectivism
has little or none of the
leftovers from its own rich
past.15 Rather than looking
into specific artistic strategies that worked well for
artists in the Cold War era
(and which might or might
not work well here and
now), I suggest that we
take two elemental questions to heart. The first
question is whether we
can find the inner conviction that art is an elemental need (and if we have
the willpower, or are prepared, to put this idea into
practice).16 The second
one has to do with the
idea that ar tisthood is
not an individual fate
(…) but can rest on a
collective foundation
of solidarit y structures,17 as Gielen phrases it so rightly.
Perhaps this is a good
moment to remember the
lifelong stipend that Jorn
passed on to the Belgian
poet Christian Dotremont,
and to bring up Jorn’s donation of over 1.500 art
works by various artists
to the city of Silkeborg
(today at Museum Jorn).
Or the donation of his
premises in Albisola, Italy,
to the community, on the
condition that his artistfriend Alberto Gambetta
could continue living
there until his death and
that it would become a
public venue after that.
These examples not only
testify to what looks like
solidarity (or generosity) in various of Jorn’s
actions. They also point
to Jorn’s second prerequisite to an effective
utilisation of the artistic
possibilities: the artistic
prerequisite,18 to which
collaboration between
artists is a pre-given.
To Jorn collaboration and
‘brotherhood’ were vital
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 94-95
and primary artistic solutions. Within these collaborations he regarded
disciplinary boundaries
of no importance, he
rather advocated their
abolition. He also rejected the idea of making
compromises – so that
everyone involved in the
collaboration can give his
best. The artists involved
would share, what Jorn
calls the ‘language of the
new age’.19 He wrote: It
is the change-over
to another rhy thm of
life in which the essential thing is not
the emphasis on the
private, the masterpiece, the individual,
… not the division of
life into closed-of f
forms, rubrics and
classifications, but
life’s own rhy thm,
luxuriance and free
grow th…, 2 0 or: it is
not just a mat ter of
creating an organic,
living and cohesive
architectural
st yle,
but also of creating
a living lifest yle, an
organic collaboration
bet ween human beings – an organic societ y in ef fect. 21
What is important to add
is that to Asger Jorn, the
idea of an ‘organic collaboration’ (or any other idea
for that matter) takes the
subjective, irrational side
of human nature into account. To answer one of
my initial questions: I can
only agree with Jorn that
this ‘romantic’ approach
is in fact truly realistic.
Let us return to the second question: How to
practise a genuinely
critical art towards contemporary culture today? Perhaps it is not
too far fetched to claim
that in our individualistic
society, focused on specialization and demarcation, collectivism by its
very nature is genuinely
critical (towards the art
world’s system of individuality in particular). In
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09-09-14 22:08
her essay ‘Internationaleries – Collectivism, the
Grotesque, and Cold War
Functionalism’
Jelena
Stojanovic writes about
influential European collectives which were all,
with the exception of
one, co-founded by Jorn:
Cobra, International Lettriste, Mouvement pour
un Bauhaus Imaginiste,
and the L’Internationale
Situationniste. She points
out that they: took upon
themselves the immense and utopian
t ask of reimagining
collective subjectivit y. That is, of redefining the ver y notion
of utopia for the cold
war era, a time when
the ‘colonization of
ever ydayness’ fir st
took on an unconditional presence. They
sought to achieve
this gargantuan t ask
by employing what
they believed was
the only available
t actic : a critical ar t
practice, informed by
the cold war in which
negation,
debasement, and blasphemy were discharged
against all highly
promoted
cultural
values including ‘ar t’,
but also the ‘avantgarde’. 22
Perhaps the second
question to take from
Jorn and his co-conspirators is whether we are up
to reimagining collective
subjectivity in a time of
repressive liberalism.
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 96-97
Hilde de Bruijn is Curator at the Cobra
Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen,
and a freelance Curator.
1
Graham Birtwistle, Living Art –
Asger Jorn’s comprehensive theory
of art between Helhesten and Cobra
(1946-1949), Utrecht: Reflex, 1986, p.
55.
2 Pascal Gielen, Repressief liberalisme – ‘Over kunst, markt en
cultuur-beleid in Nederland / Repressive Liberalism: The Dutch Cultural
Policy System’ (summary in English),
Kunstlicht (no 1/2, 2013). Translations
are my own and I refer to the Dutch text.
3
Dito, p. 14.
4 Asger Jorn, ‘Value and Economy –
Critique of political economy and The
exploitation of the unique’, published
in French in 1959 by L’Internationale
Situationniste. In 1962 Jorn published
‘Value and Economy…’ as Report no. 2
of the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism. I refer to Peter
Shield’s English translation in The
Natural Order and other texts, Ashgate, 2002, p. 203.
5 Asger Jorn, ‘Architecture is not
art’, 1943 translated by Paul Larkin
in: Ed. Ruth Baumeister, Fraternité
Avant Tout – Asger Jorn’s writings on
art and architecture, 1938-1958, 010
Publishers, Rotterdam 2011, p. 53.
14 Asger Jorn, ‘Against Functionalism’, 1957 in Baumeister, p. 278.
15 Ed. Blake Stimson & Gregory Sholette, Collectivism after modernism:
the art of social imagination after
1945, University of Minnesota: Minneapolis/London, 2007, p. xii.
16 In line with this and Jorn’s concept of ‘a living art’ Gielen mentions
the need for artists who are capable of
translating their strategies into ‘actual
life forms’ (werkelijke levensvormen).
17
Gielen, p. 18.
18 Asger Jorn, ‘Notes on the Way’ in
Baumeister, p. 82.
19
Dito, p. 83.
20 Asger Jorn, ‘Formsprakets Livsinnehåll’ (The lifecontent of the language
of form), Byggmåstaren, Stockholm,
XXVI, 17, 1947, in Birtwistle, p. 317.
21 Asger Jorn, ‘What is an ornament?’, 1948 in Baumeister, p. 206.
22 Stimson & Sholette, p. 38.
6
Dito. Jorn’s words were not empty rhetoric, he and his family lived in
very poor conditions for a long time. He
was seriously undernourished by 1951,
indicated as one of the reasons for
him to get tuberculosis, and when he
moved to Albisola, Italy with his family
they lived in a tent along the riverside
for a while.
7 The painter Asger Jørgensen,
‘Notes on the Way’, 1945, in Baumeister,
p. 82.
8
‘Value and Economy…’, p. 190.
9
Dito.
10 He literally meant that if I would
amuse myself for one hour with a piece
of art, a boxing match, chess game and
so on, I would owe the maker/entertainer one hour of productive work.
11 Asger Jorn, ‘Face to Face’, 1944,
in Baumeister, p. 66 and 67.
12
‘Value and Economy…’, p. 184.
13
Gielen, p. 14.
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09-09-14 22:08
Asger Jorn, L’intermédière Reserve,
1965, oil on canvas. Coll. Cobra
Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen,
long term loan from a private
collection.
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 98-99
09-09-14 22:08
Per
Hovdenakk
1958: Asger Jorn took
part in the World Art Fair
in Belgium – his international breakthrough. Otto
van de Loo’s gallery was
now truly making a name
for itself, with Asger Jorn
as its main artist. The
result was a matchless
partnership and friendship that would last until Jorn’s death in 1973.
Thanks in part to major
donations from his own
substantial collection of
paintings and prints, Van
de Loo secured Jorn a
place in leading European museums and collections.
Otto van de Loo put Jorn
in touch with various artists, including a Munichbased group that came
to be known as Gruppe
SPUR and worked together with friends of
Jorn’s in Italy, Denmark
and Cobra.
The 1960s were an excitingly rich period for Jorn.
His improving financial
situation, thanks in particular to the partnership with Galerie van de
Loo, enabled him to carry
out book projects and
plans he had been working on for many years –
not to mention the large
quantities of paintings,
drawings and prints that
emerged from his studio
during that decade.
Jorn’s prints led to more
and more work and research
assignments,
which Jorn particularly
appreciated and were
published in many different countries by the
Munich gallery.
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 100-101
09-09-14 22:08
Test prints gave Jorn an shown him friendship in
added opportunity to ex- the past – in some cases
plore and discover new a very long time ago.
approaches to the moGjettum (N) , September 3, 2014
tifs and themes of his
work. Large numbers
of these ‘variants’ were
sent to the museum in
Silkeborg, and as ‘information’ to friends he
knew were interested
in them – as well as to
Otto, who ensured everything was well looked
after and found its way
to the collections that
mattered most.
After working all day
in the print workshop,
Asger Jorn would go
home with a bundle of
test prints under his arm.
These were then sent to
colleagues and friends,
some of whom received
two copies so they could
sell one and hang the
other on the wall. On
several occasions I was
dispatched to Copenhagen with parcels of
prints, often for people
that had helped Jorn or
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 102-103
103
09-09-14 22:08
and translate the original titles as closely as
possible. In some cases
we have refrained from
translating the title.
DONATIONS
LIST
·
··
printed inside the cover of this book
details of this work also shown
inside this book
CR refers to the publication: ASGER JORN Werkverzeignis der Druckgraphik / Catalogue Raisonné of Prints, 2. aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage, erarbeitet von Prof.
Dr. Gerd Presler, Galerie
van de Loo, München und
Silkeborg Kunstmuseum,
2009.
The sizes between brackets refer to the measurement of the paper sheet,
unless indicated otherwise.
Asger Jorn and Otto van de Loo with
a sculpture by Lothar Fischer dating
from 1964 in front of Van de Loo’s
house, Grammstraße, Munich, around
1965.
Jorn enjoyed playing
with language and with
the titles of his productions. Sometimes he misspelled things deliberately. We have tried to follow
From the series of etchings (CR no.
133-152), winter of 1953-54, partly
reworked with drypoint and published in 1961 as Schweizer Suite (CR
no. 153-175)
Untitled series (CR no. 133-152)
··
‘Pastorale’ (Pastorale), etching, aquatint, 10/15, 171 x 112 mm (300 x 245
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no.
133
·
‘Détails Taillés’ (Cut-out Details),
etching, aquatint, 8/15, 197 x 116 mm
(320 x 245 mm), signed ‘8/15 Jorn’
and dated ‘1953’, CR no. 134
··
‘La Mère des Mers’ (The Mother of
Seas), etching, aquatint, 13/15, 80 x
102 mm (245 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Asger Jorn 1953’, CR no. 135
·
‘Mads’ (Mads), etching, aquatint,
8/15, 102 x 78 mm (300 x 450 mm),
signed ‘Jorn’ and dated ‘1952’, CR no.
136
‘La mer attire’ (The Sea Beckons),
etching, aquatint, 9/15, 143 x 111 mm
(350 x 250 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn 1954’, CR no. 137
·
Untitled, etching, aquatint, 8/15, 96
x 162 mm (250 x 350 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 138
·
‘Juge et prêtre’ (Judge and Priest),
etching, aquatint, 11/15, 98 x 172 mm
(24,5 x 31,5 mm), signed ‘Jorn’ and
dated ‘1953’, CR no. 139
‘Visage attentif’ (Attentive Face), etching, aquatint, 5/15, 144 x 110 mm (350
x 250 mm), signed ‘Jorn’ and dated
‘1954’, CR no. 140
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 104-105
09-09-14 22:08
‘Einsamer Wanderer’ (Solitary Wanderer), etching, aquatint, 10/15, 135 x 96
mm (300 x 25 mm), signed ‘Jorn’ and
dated ‘1953’, CR no. 141
·
‘Imbécile en danger’ (Fool in Danger), etching, aquatint, 5/15, 138 x 132
mm (250 x 350 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn 1954’, CR no. 142
·
‘Bellmann’ (Bellmann), etching, aquatint, 5/15, 140 x 111 mm (250 x 350
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 1954’,
CR no. 143
Untitled, etching, aquatint, 8/15, 77 x
164 mm (240 x 300 mm), signed ‘Jorn’
and dated ‘1953’, CR no. 144
·
··
‘L´homme araigné’ (Spiderman),
etching, 142 x 109 mm (350 x 250),
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘54’, CR no. 154
‘Jeu à deux’ (Game for Two), etching,
144 x 111 mm (350 x 250 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 155
· ‘Hiver’
(Winter), etching, 105 x 147
mm (250 x 350 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 156
·
‘Salaud Solaire’ (Solar Bastard),
etching, 91 x 155 mm (250 x 350 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 157
‘Odradek’, 10/15, 88 x 167 mm (250 x
350 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’,
CR no. 158
Untitled, etching, aquatint, 3/15, 91
x 180 mm (245 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 1953’, CR no. 145
·
Untitled, etching, aquatint, 9/15, 143 x
110 mm (350 x 250 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 146
·
·
‘Cornu’ (Horned), etching, aquatint, 2/15, 95 x 163 mm (250 x 350
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 1954’,
CR no. 147
‘Vierge obstinée’ (Obstinate Virgin),
etching, aquatint, 11/15, 173 x 125
mm (300 x 250 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn 1953’, CR no. 148
‘Fonctionaires encerciés’, etching, aquatint, 9/15, 124 x 177 mm (340 x 315
mm), signed ‘Jorn 9/15’ and dated
‘1953’, CR no. 149
··
‘Passion lugubre’ (Lugubrious Passion), etching, aquatint, 10/15, 127 x
135 mm (245 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 1953’, CR no. 150
‘Silence de promenade’ (Silent
Promenade),
etching,
aquatint,
9/15, 103 x 135 mm (315 x 340
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 1953’,
CR no. 151
Untitled, etching, aquatint, 10/15, 134
x 132 mm (295 x 240 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 152
Schweizer Suite (Swiss Suite), 10/15,
1961 (CR 153-175)
·
‘Rencontre’ (Encounter), etching,
335 x 250 mm (380 x 275 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn ‘54’, CR no. 153
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 106-107
‘Le droit de l’aigle’ (The Eagle’s
Share), 130 x 107 mm (350 x 250 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 159
‘Solitude imaginée’ (Imagined Solitude), 131 x 107 mm (350 x 250 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 160
·
‘Création cosmique’ (Cosmic Creation), 122 x 168 mm (250 x 350 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 161
·
‘Le roi d’oiseaux’ (The King of Birds),
145 x 110 (350 x 250 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘53’, CR no. 162
·
‘Mon château d’Espagne’ (My
Spanish Castle), 121 x 171 mm (250 x
350 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’,
CR no. 163
·
‘L’étranger au village’ (The Stranger
in the Village), 77 x 102 mm (350 x
250 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’,
CR no. 169
‘L’un est contraire’ (One is Contrary),
82 x 142 mm (250 x 350 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 170
‘Double délire’ (Double Delirium), 90 x
155 mm (250 x 350 mm), CR no. 171
··
‘Paysage inondé en Hollande’
(Flooded Landscape in Holland), 104 x
145 mm (250 x 350 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 172
‘Gaieté retenue’ (Restrained Cheerfulness), 175 x 86 mm (350 x 250 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 173
··
‘Je suis plein’ (I am Full), 175 x 86
mm (350 x 250 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 174
·
‘Résistance masculine’ (Male Resistance), 128 x 118 mm (350 x 250
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’,
CR no. 165
‘Les enfants s’engeulent’ (The Children
Shout at each other), 88 x 148 mm
(250 x 350 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 166
Untitled, colour lithography, 41/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 250
·
Untitled, colour lithography (b/w),
22/50, 617 x 460 mm (paper), signed
and dated ‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 251
Untitled, colour lithography, 19/50,
460 x 617 mm (paper), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 252
Untitled, colour lithography, 39/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 253
· Untitled,
··
Untitled, colour lithography, 42/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn’63’, CR no. 261
Friedhof der Maulwürfe oder
Geländegänge in Tagesläufe, signed
and dated 1959, Novel by C. Caspari,
part one, with eight original etchings,
aquatint, vernis mou by Asger Jorn,
193/200, 330 x 240 mm, CR no.’s 212219
From the Jubiläumsserie (Anniversary Series) (CR no. 239-262), 1963
Untitled, lithography (b/w), 46/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 239
Untitled, lithography (b/w), 34/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 240
·
‘Schweizer Garde’ (Swiss Guard),
102 x 175 mm (250 x 350 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 167
· Untitled, lithography (b/w), 44/50, 617
·
Untitled, colour lithography, 39/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 244
‘Conférence à sept’ (Conference
with Seven), 77 x 102 mm (250 x
350 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’,
CR no. 168
Untitled,
colour
lithography,
26/50, 617 x 460 mm (paper),
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘63’, CR
no. 248 Untitled, colour lithography,
48/50, 460 x 617 mm (paper), signed
and dated ‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 249
‘Japonais Ironique’ (Ironic Japanese),
176 x 101 mm (350 x 250 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn 54’, CR no. 175
·
‘Femelle interplanetaire’ (Interplanetary Woman), 145 x 111 mm (350 x
250 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 54’,
CR no. 164
Untitled, colour lithography, 29/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 247
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 242
Untitled, colour lithography, 42/50, 617
x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 245
colour lithography, 22/50,
617 x 460 mm (paper), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘63’, CR no. 256
From a series of drypoint etchings
(CR no. 272-298), 1966
‘Visa viking’, 38/45, 295 x 238 mm (470
x 380 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 272
‘Tourbillon détourné’ (Diverted Maelstrom), 38/45, 237 x 297 mm (470 x
380 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 273
‘Au ventre des âmes’ (In the Belly of the
Souls), 38/45, 295 x 238 mm (470 x
380 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 274
‘Le fin fond des formes’ (The Deepest
Depths of Forms), 38/45, 196 x 148
mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 275
‘Le compromis des nobles’ (The Compromise of Noblemen), 38/45, 296 x
238 mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 276
107
09-09-14 22:08
‘La divine tragédie’ (The Divine Tragedy), 38/45, 143 x 98 mm (470 x 380
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 277
‘Magination et imagination’ (Magination and Imagination), 38/45, 156 x 144
mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 292
Untitled,
drypoint
over
etching, 69 X 64 mm (230 x 160 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘68’, CR
no. 331
‘Panorama des prises de bec’ (Panorama of Disputes), 38/45, 201 x 156
mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 278
‘La nature des ratures’ (The Nature of
Temperatures), 38/45, 138 x 98 mm
(470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 293
Untitled, drypoint, 55 x 51 mm (230 x
160 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘68’,
CR no. 332
‘Hamlet au lard’ (Hamlet Gone Fat),
38/45, 225 x 167 mm (470 x 380 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 279
‘Tête têtue’ (Stubborn Head), 38/45,
167 x 119 mm (470 x 380 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 294
·
‘Grimasque’ (Grimace), 38/45, 295
x 239 mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 280
‘Bruyères bruyantes’ (Noisy Heaths),
38/45, 97 x 142 mm (470 x 380 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 295
‘Pureté vue de pres’ (Purity Seen From
Up Close), 38/45, 237 x 167 mm (470 x
380 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 281
‘Je ne vais pas- je viens’ (I don’t go- I
come), 38/45, 221 x 161 mm (470 x
380 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 296
‘Population impopulaire’ (Unpopular
Population), 38/45, 217 x 167 mm (470
x 380 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 282
‘Terre terrible’ (Terrible Earth), 38/45,
297 x 238 mm (470 x 380 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 297
‘Pour en finir avec la fin’ (To Finish with
the End), 38/45, 196 x 237 mm (470 x
380 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’,
CR no. 283
‘Les formidables formes’ (The Formidable Forms), 38/45, 197 x 237 mm
(470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 284
‘Paysage et pays fou’, 38/45, 168 x 228
mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 285
‘Miss Lykket’ (Miss Take), 38/45, 173
x 225 mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 286
‘Le marché opus’, 38/45, 296 x 237
mm (470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 287
·
‘Parking-kong’, 38/45, 148 x 99 mm
(470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 288
‘Le beau coup’ (The Fine Blow), 38/45,
108 x 156 mm (470 x 380 mm), signed
and dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 289
‘L’intérieur interdit’ (The Prohibited
Interior), 1966, 38/45, 167 x 119 mm
(470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 290
‘Les voyages forment la genèse’ (The
Travels Form the Genesis), 38/45, 136
x 223 mm (470 x 380), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 291
108
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 108-109
‘L’avenir du souvenir’ (The Future of
Remembrance), 38/45, 297 x 238 mm
(470 x 380 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘66’, CR no. 298
Untitled, drypoint and etching, 115 x
116 mm (160 x 230 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘68’, CR no. 333
·
Untitled, aquatint, etching, drypoint,
177 x 121 mm (230 x 155), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘68’, CR no. 334
Untitled, drypoint, 81 x 57 mm (230 x
160 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘68’,
CR no. 335
Untitled, drypoint over etching, 80 x 65
mm (230 x 160 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘68’, CR no. 336
Suite sur japon pour un livre qui
n’existe pas (Suite on Japon Paper
for a Non-existing Book) (CR no. 327336), 1968, 5/15
·
Untitled, etching and drypoint, 76 x
110 mm (155 x 230 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘68’, CR no. 327
· Untitled, etching and drypoint, 72 x 64
mm (230 x 155 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘68’, CR no. 328
Untitled, etching and drypoint, 70 x 64
mm (230 x 160 mm) (paper), signed
and dated ‘Jorn ‘68’, CR no. 329
Untitled, drypoint over etching, 60 x
105 mm (160 x 230 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘68’, CR no. 330
‘Edles Kroppzeug’ (Noble Junk),
woodcut b/w, 29/34, 285 x 215 mm,
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 374
‘Rigor Vivendis’ (Stiffness of Life),
woodcut b/w, 29/34, 300 x 222 mm
(430 x 300), signed and dated ‘Jorn
‘70’, CR no. 375
‘Auf schiefer Ebene’ (On an Inclining
Level), colour woodcut, 29/34, 300 x
222 mm (430 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 376
‘Hair’ (Hair), woodcut b/w, 29/34, 300
x 222 mm (430 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 377
‘Drei Brüder’ (Three Brothers), woodcut b/w, 29/34, 300 x 222 mm (430 x
300 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘70’,
CR no. 378
‘Eiskönig’ (Ice King), colour woodcut,
29/34, 300 x 222 mm (430 x 300 mm),
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 379
·· ‘Gelichter’ (The Brooding), woodcut
From the series 9 Intimités Graphoglyptic, 1969
·
The portfolio Von Kopf bis Fuss
(From Head to Toe) (CR no. 300-310),
1966/67, 15/75
··
‘Sur le pont d’or’ (On the Golden
Bridge), lithography, 25/50, 755 x 530
mm (paper), signed and dated ‘Jorn
69’, CR no. 345
From a series of woodcut prints
(CR no. 370-388), partly collected under the title Euphorismen
(CR no. 374-381), 1970
·
‘Einzelgänger’(Loner), colour woodcut, 28/34, 315 x 245 mm (620 x 430
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 64-70’,
CR no. 370
‘Das grüne Meer’ (The Green Sea), colour woodcut, 29/34, 380 x 295 mm
(620 x 430 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn 64-70’, CR no. 371
·
‘Im vogeltal’ (In the Bird Valley),
28/34, 380 x 310 mm (630 x 470
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 64-70’,
CR no. 372
‘Ins Unbekannte’ (Into the Unknown),
colour woodcut, 2/6, 410 x 318 mm
(620 x 430 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 373
b/w, 29/34, 300 x 218 mm (paper),
signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 380
‘Des Pudels Kern’ (The Core of the Poodle), woodcut b/w, 29/34, 293 x 220
mm (430 x 300 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 381
‘Kindergreise’ (Aged Children), colour
woodcut, 33/34, 445 x 347 mm (630
x 470 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘70’,
CR no. 383
‘Ursprung der Familie’ (The Family´s
Origin), colour woodcut, Epreuve
d’artiste/artist’s proof, 340 x 445 mm
(470 x 630 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 384
‘Sommerreise’(Summer Travel), colour
woodcut, 22/34, 450 x 350 mm (print)
640 x 460 mm (paper), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 385
‘Auf Wiedersehen’ (Goodbye), colour
woodcut, 29/34, 790 x 585 mm (870 x
600 mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘70’,
CR no. 386
‘Blaue Seele’ (Blue Soul), colour woodcut, 29/34, 448 x 348 mm (630 x 470
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn ‘70’,
CR no. 387
·
‘Ausgeschnittene Holzwege’ (Cut
out Woodways), colour woodcut,
Epreuve d’Artiste / artist’s proof, 504
x 597 mm (630 x 790 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR 388
109
09-09-14 22:08
Individual works
Untitled, 1958, lithography, 4/50, 560
x 425 mm (600 x 430 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘58’, CR no. 194
Untitled, 1958, colour etching, aquatint, reworked with drypoint, 10/15,
Epreuve d’artiste / artist’s proof, 262
x 211 mm (425 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘59’, CR no. 206
Untitled, 1970, colour woodcut,
33/34, 160 x 140 mm (350 x 300
mm), signed and dated ‘Jorn 70’,
CR no. 390
·
Untitled, 1970, screen print, 2/15,
728 x 550 mm (paper), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 70’, CR no. 391
Untitled, 1958, etching, 48/50, 297 x
183 mm (420 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘59’, CR no. 207
Untitled, 1959, etching, 19/15, 183 x
292 mm (420 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘59’, CR no. 208
· Untitled, 1959, etching, 20/15, 205 x
262 mm (420 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘59’, CR no. 209
Untitled, 1959, etching, trial proof, 262
x 210 mm (420 x 300 mm), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘59’, CR no. 210
·
Untitled, 1958, colour etching, aquatint, reworked with drypoint, Epreuve
d’artiste / artist’s proof, 245 x 210 mm
(420 x 300 mm), signed and dated
‘Jorn ‘58’, CR no. 211
Untitled, 1962, lithography, 6/12, 600
x 440 mm (paper), signed and dated
‘Jorn 62’, CR no. 235
Untitled, 1962, lithography, 10/38,
600 x 440 mm (paper), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘62’, CR no. 236
·
‘Das offene Versteck’ (The Open
Hiding Place), 1970, lithography, 7/85,
1020 x 1400 mm (paper), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 359
·
‘Die Zwei Elemente’ (The Two Elements), 1970, lithography, 54/85,
2100 x 1420 mm (paper), signed and
dated ‘Jorn ‘70’, CR no. 360
Untitled, 1970, woodcut, Epreuve
d’artiste / artist’s proof, 178 x 349
mm (print) 315 x 460 mm (paper), signed and dated ‘Jorn70’,
CR no. 369
Untitled, 1970, colour woodcut, 33/34,
140 x 160 mm (woodcut), signed and
dated ‘Jorn 70’, CR no. 389
110
20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 110-111
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20140908_binnenwerk_basislijn.indd 112
09-09-14 22:08

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