Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Primitivism, Humanism, And Ambivalence: Cobra And Post-Cobra, Karen Kurczynski, Nicola Pezolet
Primitivism, Humanism, And Ambivalence: Cobra And Post-Cobra, Karen Kurczynski, Nicola Pezolet
Karen Kurczynski
Examines the issue of primitivism in the Cobra movement and its aftermath, with specific attention to the role of Ernest Mancoba in the movement. The article observes that the Cobra artists were ambivalent on the subject of primitivism--some, like Karel Appel, taking a classic modernist primitivist approach while others, like Asger Jorn, Ejler Bille, and Constant, rejected the racist assumptions of primitivism in the search for a modern "folk art." We conclude that the discourse of primitivism entered a crisis in the postwar period in tandem with its opposing discourse, humanism, which began to break down as a "universal" western …
Expression As Vandalism: Asger Jorn’S Modifications, Karen Kurczynski
Expression As Vandalism: Asger Jorn’S Modifications, Karen Kurczynski
Karen Kurczynski
Establishes the political and artistic context for Asger Jorn's Modifications, a series of détourned kitsch canvases begun in Cobra around 1950 but first realized on flea market paintings in 1959 with Enrico Baj. Considers the Situationist theorization of the works as a form of détournement in the context of the post war art world's recuperation of the avant-garde; the impact of Dada, Duchamp and Picabia on the series; and the broader context of Nouveau Réalisme and the concurrent but only tangentially related series of Modifications by Daniel Spoerri.
Ironic Gestures: Asger Jorn, Abstract Expressionism, And Informel, Karen Kurczynski
Ironic Gestures: Asger Jorn, Abstract Expressionism, And Informel, Karen Kurczynski
Karen Kurczynski
Discusses the artistic strategies of the mature (late 1950s) work of Danish painter Asger Jorn (1914-1973) as a combination of celebration of the possibilities of gestural expression and a critical response to the limited way gestural painting was framed in the movements of Abstract Expressionism in the US and Informel in Europe. Considered in light of his theoretical writing and his participation in the collective avant-gardes Cobra and the Situationist International, Jorn's art work politicizes abstract painting at the height of the Cold War and presents neo-Marxist and/or Situationist responses to the artificial social isolation of painting through specific strategies …