Asger Jorn in his artist quotes on painting & life - free resource, Danish and European art history

Asger Jorn in his quotes - the Danish artist on painting, his artistic life & ideas - free resource for pupils, students and teachers in Eurpean art history

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Asger Jorn’s artist quotes give an impression of the ideas and characteristics of the Danish artist, searching for expressive and spontaneous painting art. The mythological world of Scandinavian history was his great inspiration.

As starting artist Jorn was co-founder (during the war period in Denmark - German occupation) of the Danish underground art-group, ‘Helhesten’ (Hell-horse). He became active contributor to its journal. Some quotes of Jorn are taken from these texts.

In 1941, Jorn wrote his key theoretical art-essay, ‘Intimate Banalities’. Many quotes of this pronounced art-statement are taken from this essay. He criticized Surrealism - on the other hand, Jorn uses the ideas and techniques of former Surrealism. From 1947 Jorn was an leading artist in the new European COBRA art movement - with artists from Denmark, The Netherlands and Belgium.
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Some selected artist-quotes of Asger Jorn - as short introduction of his extended quotes in the PDF:

’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.’ - quote, from Asger Jorn’s text: ‘Intime Banaliteter’, in Helhesten 1 (1941), p. 75 - 79

’Beautiful, ugly, impressive, disgusting, meaningless, grim, contradictory etc… .It makes no difference, as long as it is life, vigorously pouring forth.’ - Jorn’s quote, from his text: ‘Ansigt til Ansigt’ (Face to Face), A-5, 1 (1944), p. 14

’(My own goal is) to be completely empty of ideas at the moment of setting brush to canvas, the head being just as empty as the canvas’.’ - Jorn’s quote: from a conversation with Pierre Loeb, circa 1946; as cited on the website of the Jorn Museum
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links for selected free art-resources on Danish artist Asger Jorn:

• biographical notes on Asger Jorn, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asger_Jorn
• artist-quotes of ànd about Jorn, Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Asger_Jorn
• images of the painting art of Asger Jorn, Wikiart: https://www.wikiart.org/en/asger-jorn
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  editor: Fons Heijnsbroek / Matrozenhof (FotoDutch on Wikiquote):<br>[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/User:FotoDutch]