The first of his work in a Parisian museum since 1978!

Didaska I – 1945


Danish artist Asger Oluf Jorn – who died in 1973 at the age of 59 – was one of the founders of the Situationist International (SI), European avant-garde art movement COBRA and is considered the most important Danish artist of the 20th Century, no less! A communist resistant during the 2nd World War, he spent the end of the 1950s doing what he called “modifications”, painting that he exposed in Paris in 1959, made out of old paintings bought at the flea market.

Asger Jorn, untitled, 1956 (detail), coll. Silkeborg Kunstmuseum. © Donation Jorn, Silkeborg, photo: Lars Bay © Adagp, Paris 2009

Leaving SI in 1961, he founded the Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism, refused a Guggenheim prize (and the money that went with it) in 1964, and went to the United States for the first and only time in 1970 for a gallery opening, saying that he refused to visit a country that obliged you to state that you were not a communist.

Extremely prolific, after his death he left behind over 2,500 paintings, drawings, ceramics, sculptures, books, colllages and tapestries. This rare exhibition is a chance to find out more about the enigmatic man and his multi-faceted art.

Here’s all the essential information for the Asger Jorn exhibition at the Pompidou Centre

When: 11th February – 11th May 2009
Where: Pompidou Centre (Beaubourg), place Georges Pompidou, 75004 Paris. Métro Rambuteau (line 11), Hôtel de Ville (lines 1 & 11), Châtelet (almost all lines). Bus n°s 21 / 29 / 38 / 47 / 58 / 69 / 70 / 72 / 74 / 75 / 76 / 81 / 85 / 96
Opening hours: open every day except Tuesdays and the 1st May from 11am – 9pm, 11pm on Thursdays
Admission: adults 12 euros, free for under-18s. Wednesdays from 6-9pm, free for 18-25 year-olds
Wikipedia for Asger Jorn here