Jorn International

For the first time in Denmark, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum presented a number of the largest and most significant works that Asger Jorn created abroad from 1953-1972, including seven major works that have never before been shown together in Denmark. The many masterpieces by Jorn were on loan from Guggenheim, New York, Tate, London, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin and Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo among others. The JORN INTERNATIONAL exhibition was a tribute to the man and world artist Jorn.

Few people are familiar with Jorn's international masterpieces, which brought him fame around the world. ARoS had long wanted to bring these works to Denmark. With help from many quarters, the JORN INTERNATIONAL exhibition became a reality.

When Jorn and his family headed south in the autumn of 1953, it was the beginning of his international career. In the years that followed, several European art collectors and galleries recognised Jorn's artistic work and he exhibited in England, Belgium, Italy and France. Jorn had his international breakthrough with the masterpiece Lettre à mon fils (Letter to my son) (1956-57), which today belongs to the Tate in London. The vast majority of Jorn's paintings created during these years were exhibited and sold throughout Europe.

Jorn possessed tremendous creative power and self-confidence. He can best be described as a cosmopolitan with a gigantic curiosity and desire to create something new and different in art. His restlessness took him around Europe, where he came into contact with countless people. For Jorn, it was not the journey itself that was the goal, but the act of moving from place to place. He was always on the lookout for new inspiration and new discussion and collaboration partners.

Slowly, but purposefully, the Nordic melancholy that characterised early Jorn was replaced by a more open and universal imagery with a far greater power of colour and freedom in composition. Jorn rejected the dominant dark and drawn style in favour of a more painterly and abstract treatment of the picture plane and gradually added a lighter and more poetic tone.

The exhibition JORN INTERNATIONAL focussed on the years after COBRA, when Jorn had his international breakthrough. The late Jorn became more expressive and abstract in his visual language. He experimented with art media other than painting, including collage tear-offs (décollages) and sculptures in ceramic, bronze and marble. These works were also shown in the exhibition.

Jorn's images have a high degree of identification. They may be abstract and otherworldly, but there is always a shape, a colour or a creature that visually captures you. The enormous energy and extroversion that characterised Jorn was transferred to his art and constantly awakens thoughts and emotions in the viewer. In his large dynamic works, Jorn manipulates our senses. The viewer is pushed back and forth between different moods and emotions. Soon you are elated and soon you are depressed. In major and minor keys, we are led around in a seductive and imaginative universe with no centre or fixed points of reference. Only the imagination sets the limits.

When Jorn died in 1973, he was represented in 31 art museums in Europe and the USA. Today he is one of Denmark's greatest painters.