Asger Jorn – Vision Nocturne (1956)

Vision Nocturne (1956) by the world-famous Danish painter, Asger Jorn (1914-1973). In his nocturnal vision, Jorn has let a flood of black leave behind a series of figures as stranded islands in a pool of oil. While several of the figures engage with each other in different ways, the colors drift away from them. There are obvious similarities with the American Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), but with Jorn there is carnal figuration, with Pollock there is a more fluid abstraction.

Asger Jorn's paintings are about things that we all think about: life, death, love and happiness. His paintings are populated by fantasy creatures who, like us, are born and die, love, cry, laugh, etc.

Jorn was an artist who transcended boundaries in every way – both in terms of the international art scene, the COBRA movement, the Situationist International and much more, but also in relation to his thoughts on the artist's position in society.

Asger Jorn's challenges of the fabric of art, of the materials, were legendary and lifelong. He worked with and processed all known categories within the visual arts, and had a special eye for precisely breaking down categorizations, if that was even possible for him.

Jorn was critical of a lofty perception of art, and he consciously challenged high culture with banality, irony, humor, and anti-aesthetics.

Like the generation of post-war artists, Asger Jorn insisted on the dream of community, socialism and a universal, abstract imagery that could help unite war-torn Europe.