Asger Jorn Quotes (1914-1973)

“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?”

“It is said that my art has some typically Nordic features: the curving lines, the convolutions, the magical masks and staring eyes that appear in myths and folk art. This may be. My interest in the dynamics of Jugend style probably also comes into it.”

“Our experiments [by the artists of 'Cobra'] the aim at letting thought express itself spontaneously without the control which reason represents. By means of this irrational spontaneity we get closer tot the vital source of life. Our goal is to liberate ourselves from the control of reason which has been and still is the thing which the bourgeoisie has idealized to seize control of life.”

“We are not talking about a new cognition in relation to abstract art, rather a new area of cognition.. .This is where abstract art steps in, in a stronger sense of life, a stronger contact with the growing life, a feeling of the pulsation of life and growth in oneself, an activation of deep-seated powers a staple vitality far deeper than our cognition, not instead of science but inspired by it.”

“Jorn's role in the Situationist movement (as in COBRA) was that of a catalyst and team leader. Guy Debord on his own lacked the personal warmth and persuasiveness to draw people of different nationalities and talents into an active working partnership. As a prototype Marxist intellectual Debord needed an ally who could patch up the petty egoisms and squabbles of the members. Their quarrels came into the open the moment Jorn's leadership was withdrawn in 1961.. .Finally, 1966-8 saw the vindication of Debord's policy, sustained against every kind of opposition, of adhering rigidly to the uncompromising pursuit of a single-minded plan. When the time came - in Strasbourg in November 1966 and in Paris in May 1968 - Debord was ready, with his two or three remaining supporters, to take over the revolutionary role for which he had been preparing during the last ten years. Incredible as it may seem, the active ideologists ('enragés' and Situationists) behind the revolutionary events in Strasbourg, Nanterre and Paris, numbered only about ten persons.”

“One method [of Jorn] was to work with accidental shapes, and this was to become a lifelong preoccupation. But in the beginning the techniques of Surrealism were put to good use: Collage, frottage, color sprayed on paper with an airbrush or floated on the surface of a bowl of water and lifted off on paper. Another way to break the link between line and plane was by what Arp called the "square-eyed" method or alternately, with Dali, putting one drawing on top of another, using transparent paper. Jorn had availed himself of all these methods and experiments by 1940.”