Asger Jorn was a Danish artist who worked with painting, sculpture and ceramics. The hallmark of his artworks is deformed shapes of a deep color palette.
Jorn’s career was also related to the art theory.
Background
Asger Jorn, born Asger Oluf Jørgensen, came to the world on March 3, 1914, in Vejrum, Jutland, Denmark. He was the second oldest of six children into a family of Lars Peter Jørgensen and Maren Jørgensen, née Nielsen. Lars and Maren were teachers.
A twelve-year-old boy, Asger lost his father in a car crash. Soon, his mother moved the family to Silkeborg.
A committed Christian, Maren raised her children in austerity. Jorn didn’t like it at all and later expressed his rebel against any form of authority in his artworks.
At the age of fifteen, Asger Jorn was diagnosed with tuberculosis but soon recovered.
Education
Asger Jorn started to paint at the age of sixteen. This time he was fascinated N. F. S. Grundtvig.
Although passioned for art, he entered the Vinthers Seminarium, a teacher-training college. While at the institution, Jorn was interested in 19th century Scandinavian philosophy. During his studies, he met the painter Martin Kaalund-Jørgensen who noted Jorn’s artistic abilities and gave him the first painting lessons. It was he who encouraged young Asger to pursue his training in the field.
A year after graduating from the college in 1935, Asger Jorn went to Paris with an intention to study with Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky was himself in financial troubles, and Jorn decided to enroll at the Fernand Léger's school of painting.
In a couple of years, Asger Jorn enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen where he spent four years.
The start of Asger Jorn’s career can be counted from the participation at the exhibition of Free Jutlandic Painters in 1933 where he presented three canvases.
Four years later, while in Paris, the young artist collaborated with an architect Le Corbusier on the construction of the Pavillon des Temps Nouveaux (New Times Pavilion) at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the artist joined the communist resistance movement living in Denmark. Along with Egill Jacobsen, Ejler Bille, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Robert Dahlmann Olsen he founded the art group Helhesten (Ghost horse) and contributed to its eponymous journal. In 1939, he wrote an essay considering amateur landscapes as the best art of the period.
Jorn continued the essayist activity throughout the next decade, writing about the relations between art, architecture and life. In addition, the artist worked a lot as a decorator. His design projects of the period included the decorations for Marinus Andersen’s flat, inner and outer decorations for Elna Fonnesbech-Sandberg’s summer house and a kindergarten in Hjortøgade in Copenhagen.
In 1948, Asger Jorn travelled again in Paris where had his first solo exhibition in the capital of France at the Galerie Breteau. The same year, with the help of his colleagues Christian Dotremont, Dutchmen Karel Appel, Constant Nieuwenhuys, including some members from ‘Helhesten’ group, founded an avant-garde art movement, called COBRA (Copenhague, Brussels and Amsterdam). The group had remained till 1951.
The same year, the artist came back to Silkeborg in order to cure his tuberculosis. Then, he recommenced his painting activity and tried his hand in ceramics. The artist created a book ‘Held og hasard’ (Fortune and the Game of Chance) and hoped it would be accepted as a thesis by the University of Copenhagen, but it was rejected.
In 1957, Jorn took part at the conference which resulted in the union of the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, the Lettriste Internationale, and London Psychogeographical Association into one organization called the Situationist International. The same period, Asger Jorn collaborated with the philosopher Guy Debord on the illustration and forewords for a couple of artist's books called ‘Fin de Copenhagen’ and ‘Mémoires’.
The following year, Jorn had his international debut taking part at the World’s Fair in Brussels where he demonstrated to the public his canvas titled ‘Lettre à mon fils’ (Letter to My Son).
The artist stopped the active participation at the Situationist International in 1961 however supporting the group financially.
At the beginning of the decade, Asger Jorn worked on an ambitious project – a book dedicated to the ancient Nordic art containing about 25,000 photographs by the French photographer Gérard Franceschi. Fascinated by the idea, Jorn founded the Scandinavian Institute for Comparative Vandalism.
Throughout the decade, Jorn participated in many international exhibitions, including his first solo show in the United States at the Lefebre Gallery in 1962, his first retrospectives in Basel, Amsterdam and in Louisiana near Copenhagen, both in 1964, and the traveling shows in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Gothenborg.
Later, Jorn traveled to Havana, Cuba to present his painting ‘Stalingrad’ in a cultural conference of 1968.
During the 1970s, the artist traveled a lot, visiting New York City, Las Vegas, Hawaii, Kyoto, Tokyo, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Teheran and Beirut exhibiting regularly in the galleries in Munich, Copenhagen, London, New York City and Milan.
The last year of his life, Asger Jorn worked on bronze and clay sculptures and planned to produce a book on two personalities of the Nordic art, the king Theoderik and Didrik.
Achievements
Asger Jorn was a prolific artist, sculptor and writer who created about 2,500 canvases, prints, sculptures, collages and collaborative tapestries during his lifetime.
He co-founded the COBRA avant-garde movement and Situationist International organization. The artist was the first who translated Franz Kafka into Danish.
In 1964, the artist was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship but refused it.
Jorn was a talented theorist not only in art. So, trying to explain the philosophical system called triolectics he developed the idea of three-sided football. Although the concept was theoretic at the beginning, later it transformed into a real game popular among the number of countries.
There are the Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, Denmark and Casa Museo Asger Jorn in Albissola Marina, Italy containing many of the Jorn’s art. His works can also be found in such public collections as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Tate Gallery in London and the Reina Sofia National Museum in Madrid, Spain.
In 2002, a painting by Jorn called ‘'In the Beginning Was the Image’ was purchased at Christie's in New York City for $2,099,500.
Asger Jorn became a member of the Communist Party of Denmark while studying at college. He also met the syndicalist Christian Christensen who remained his close friend thought his life.
Although after the Second World War he left the Communist Party of Denmark, Jorn stayed true to communism throughout his life applying Marxist analysis of capitalism to art.
Views
Quotations:
"The great work of art is the complete banality, and the fault with most banalities is that they are not banal enough. Banality here is not infinite in its depth and consequence, but rests on a foundation of spirituality and aesthetics."
"A creative train of thought is set off by the unexpected, the unknown, the accidental, the disorderly, the absurd, the impossible."
"Everything is in constant flux, from state to state, from good to bad and back again.. ..only in transmutation, perpetual motion, lies truth."
"The reckoning with idealism as a view of life is universal, but it also touches on something central in art-its life's substance. One must understand that it is impossible to distinguish between a picture’s form and its substance. As the flower's structure is governed by the intentional tension (when it loses the sap the form is lost), so also with art the substance creates the tension. Form and substance are one and the same. Form is the life expression and substance the living painting."
"The act of expressing oneself is a physical one. It materializes the thought."
"The basic function of thought is to find ways of satisfying our needs and desires. The Surrealism of Breton and the functionalism of architecture which was more concerned with the way in which thought functions rather than with its function, – was initially idealistic. But is this not something which we can extract from Breton’s definition of automatism?"
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Friedrich Nietzsche
Artists
Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig
Connections
Asger Jorn was married three times.
His first wife became one of his students, Kirsten Lyngborg, in 1939. The family produced three children named Klaus, Susanne and Troels.
In 1950, Jorn married Matie van Domselaer who gave birth to the couple of children, Ole and Bodil.
At the end of his life, in 1972, the artist formed the family with Nanna Enzensberger. Nanna and Asger had one son named Ib.
Father:
Lars Peter Jørgensen
Mother:
Maren Nielsen
Brother:
Jørgen Nash
1st spouse:
Kirsten Lyngborg
Son:
Klaus Jorn
Daughter:
Susanne Jorn
Son:
Troels Jorn
2nd spouse:
Matie van Domselaer
Son:
Ole Jorn
Daughter:
Bodil Jorn
3d spouse:
Nanna Enzensberger
Son:
Ib Jorn
mentor:
Martin Kaalund-Jørgensen
mentor:
Fernand Henri Lérger
Friend:
Christian Christensen
colleague:
Guy Debord
References
Asger Jorn: Louisiana Library
This book illustrated with color reproductions of the entire Asger Jorn collection in the Denmark's Louisiana Museum of Modern Art provides an introduction to the life and work of the artist
2010
Asger Jorn in Images, Words and Forms
This book provides an amusing, rather unusual introduction to this highly unconventional figure of Europe’s post-war artistic avant-garde
2014
Asger Jorn: The Open Hide
The book offers a concise overview of the diverse accomplishments of Danish artist Asger Jorn
The Art of Asger Jorn
This biography of Asger Jorn depicts the outline of the artist’s life, sheds light on his artistic production and analyzes his paintings
