Asger Jorn citations (48 citations, Page 2)

Asger Jorn: 48 citations 0 J'aime

Asger Jorn: Citations en anglais

“Everything is in constant flux, from state to state, from good to bad and back again.... only in transmutation, perpetual motion, lies truth.”

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Asger Jorn

Statement in 1950 on reality as motion, as quoted in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art
1949 - 1958, Various sources

“Being an artist is being an isolated individual. But the development of the creative foundation of the encumbers the individual artists more and more with the prevailing problems. You are of your time whether you like it or not. Developing ones foundation to an artist means continually revising it. The artistic formulae wear thin quickly and yet daily the artist — when developing his own foundation — must enter his own time and the problems of other contemporary artists. Paths cross and the soil of time is starting to be turned.”

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Asger Jorn

Quote in the late 1960s, as cited in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art, p. 28
1959 - 1973, Various sources

“l don't know what Nordic art is worth in other people's minds.... but in today's cosmopolitan art world it doesn't figure at all... Nordic art is dangerous. It compresses all its power inside ourselves. It is not a hedonistic or sensuous art. It neither claims to be objectively intelligible, nor does it deal in clear and conscious symbols. The Danish author Jakob Knudsen hit on something important when he said that Nordic art has mood and works on the mood more than on the senses or the understanding..”

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Asger Jorn

as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum 'Articles' by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255,
1959 - 1973, Alpha and Omega', (1963–64)

“There is also, for instance, a direct symbolic strength in the words 'Say it with flowers', which makes that poem one of the cornerstones of Danish lyricism. It has stood out like a boot of an exceptionally fine fit..”

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Asger Jorn

1940 - 1948, Intimate Banalities' (1941)

“Those who try to combat the production of shoddy pictures are enemies of the best art today. Those woodland lakes in a thousand sitting-rooms with gold-tinted wallpaper belong to the profoundest inspirations of art. It always feels tragic to see people labouring to saw off the branch they are sitting on.”

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Asger Jorn

1940 - 1948, Intimate Banalities' (1941)

“Breton's Surrealists wanted to place themselves outside. What is it what they want to put outside? Pure thought. That is, the only metaphysical world, reflection. But from a materialistic standpoint thought is a reflection of matter — as in a mirror. The metaphysical world is not able to surmount the material world which produces it. One has to think of SOMETHING. But for thought to be dialectical, it's object / it's "thing" must cease to be attached to everyday life.”

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Asger Jorn

1949 - 1958, Speech to the Penguins' (1949)

“Even here, nothing ever happens; and nothing ever happens to it.”

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Asger Jorn

1949 - 1958, Speech to the Penguins' (1949)

“In the beginning was the image.”

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Asger Jorn

Title of one of his paintings (1965)
1959 - 1973, Various sources

“Nordic art casts a spell on the mind which ranges from laughter to tears and from tears to violent rage. One can see how dangerous it is, we can be tyrannized by a cynical person endowed with the power of art. Much has been said about this demonic aspect. In it lies the ultimate demand that the artist must take responsibility for the states of mind that he produces, or at least he must answer for them by knowing them in his own person. This psychic demand in both the artist and the viewer has made Expressionist art so hated by devotees of aestheticism and formalism.”

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Asger Jorn

as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum 'Articles' by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255, - Jorn talks about the Nordic concept of Expressionism
1959 - 1973, Alpha and Omega', (1963–64)

“You can often give a better description of the fight between people, the essentials of it, by means of fantastic animals, the simple, primitive, naked instincts, than by depicting a specific situation. It is not the human animal we should describe, but ourselves as human animals.”

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Asger Jorn

Statement in 1950, as quoted in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art, p. 76
1949 - 1958, Various sources

“We are sparks that must glow as brightly as possible.”

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Asger Jorn

On being an pictorial artist (1950), as quoted in Asger Jorn (2002) by Arken Museum of Modern Art, p. 5
1949 - 1958, Various sources

“There can be no question of selecting in any direction, but of a penetrating the whole cosmic law of rhythms, forces and material that are the real world, from the ugliest to the most beautiful, everything that has character and expression, from the crudest and most brutal to the gentlest and most delicate; everything that speaks to us in its capacity as life. From this it follows that one must know all in order to be able to express all. It is the abolition of the aesthetic principle. We are not disillusioned because we have no illusions; we have never had any. What we have and what is our strength, is our joy in life; our interest in life, in all its amoral aspects. That is also the basis of our contemporary art. We do not even know the laws of aesthetics. That old idea of selection according to the beauty-principle Beautiful — Ugly, like to ethical Noble — Sinful, is dead for us, for whom the beautiful is also ugly and everything ugly is endowed with beauty. Behind the comedy and the tragedy we find only life's dramas uniting both; not in noble heroes and false villains, but people.”

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Asger Jorn

Variant translations:
What we possess and what gives us strength is our joy in life, our interest in life in all its amoral facets. This is also the foundation for today's art. We do not even know the aesthetic laws.
We are not disillusioned because we have no illusions; we have never had any. What we have, and what constitutes our strength, is our joy in life, in all of its moral and amoral manifestations.
1940 - 1948, Intimate Banalities' (1941)