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Asger
Jorn/Works and biography
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Untitled
1956-57 |
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Asger Jorn was born Asger Oluf Jørgensen in Vejrum,
Jutland, Denmark, on March 3, 1914. He visited Paris
in the fall of 1936, where he studied at Fernand Léger’s
Académie Contemporaine. During the war Jorn remained
in Denmark, painting canvases that reflect the influence
of James Ensor, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Joan
Miró and contributing to the magazine Helhesten.
Jorn traveled to Swedish Lapland in the summer of 1946,
met Constant in Paris that fall, and spent six months
in Djerba, Tunisia, in 1947–48. His first solo
exhibition in Paris took place in 1948 at the Galerie
Breteau. At about the same time the CoBrA (an acronym
for Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam) movement was founded
by Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont,
Jorn, and Joseph Noiret. The group’s unifying
doctrine was the complete freedom of expression with
an emphasis on color and brushwork. Jorn edited monographs
of the Bibliothèque CoBrA before disassociating
himself from the movement.
In 1951 Jorn returned to Denmark, where he spent a long
period in the Silkeborg sanatorium because of his poor
health. In 1953 he was among the founders of the Mouvement
International pour un Bauhaus Imaginiste, a continuation
of CoBrA group, and began his intensive work in ceramics.
The following year he settled in Albisola, Italy, where
he promoted the ceramics international meeting. Jorn’s
activities included painting, collage, book illustration,
prints, drawings, ceramics, tapestries, commissions
for murals, and, in his last years, sculpture. He participated
in the Situationist International movement from 1957
to 1961 and worked on a study of early Scandinavian
art between 1961 and 1965. After the mid-1950s Jorn
divided his time between Paris and Albisola. His first
solo show in New York took place in 1962 at the Lefebre
Gallery. From 1966 Jorn concentrated on oil painting
and traveled frequently, visiting Cuba, England and
Scotland, the United States, and the Orient. Jorn died
on May 1, 1973, in Aarhus, Denmark.
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