ABOUT

Hildegoesasger.org
is part of a long-
term curatorial re-
search in which the
writings of Danish
artist and thinker
Asger Jorn (1914-
1973) built the
starting point for
exploring contempo-
rary issues –to be
distilled throughout
the research. Jorn’s
attempt to develop an
all-encompassing
theory on art and
life from the per-
spective of the art-
ist is characterized
by an interdisci-
plinary, even holi-
stic approach, at
the basis of which
lies strong politi-
cal/ethical engage-
ment. His methodo-
logical approach to
writing transgresses
established modes of
thinking, and could
be described as an
entangled web of re-
flections, footnotes,
styles and detours.

This blog will con-
tain news about my
travels, interviews
with people I meet on
the way, and other
postings. Last but
not least this blog
will also contain
contributions by an
international group
of ‘critical respond-
ents’ consisting of
contemporary artists,
designers, architects
and thinkers.



hildegoesasger is made possible with support of the Mondriaan Fund

THE GRAMMAR OF SUBSTANCE (I)

Within the framework of my research into Asger Jorn´s writing and thinking I organize public sessions with special guests at a variety of venues. The guest´s practice, knowledge, insights, or responses are informative to my research, or steer the direction I take on a particular topic. The sessions also often respond to the context of the hosting institution, or to a specific request. Making the sessions public is a way to share and enter into a dialogue with the audiences.

‘The Grammar of Substance’ was a talk by Canadian artist Shannon Bool (lives and works in Berlin) and myself in the framework of the exhibition ‘Shana Moulton – episodes from Whispering Pines’ at Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem. The talk took place on Sunday 16 March 2014.

Shana Moulton is an American performance and video artist who lives and works in New York. Her work is very adequately described by Marco Antonini: “Shana Moulton’s videos and performances are in many respects the product of her own fears and anxieties. Surrounded by hysterically colourful and studiedly kitsch scenarios, her filmic alter ego, Cynthia, is obsessed with her health and well-being. In Shana/Cynthia’s hands, inoffensive and awkward medical and orthopedic devices are transformed into surrealistic machines and gateways to parallel realities that are directly linked to her perceived psychological and physical illnesses. Her adventures mirror the insecurities of whole generations while also exploiting stylistic forms and tropes excavated from the recent history of mass-mediated culture.” http://www.museomagazine.com/SHANA-MOULTON In my talk I connected Asger Jorn’s universal ornamental language, or his ideas on ornamentation, to Moulton’s the symbolic and cosmological references. Shannon Bool’s contribution is discussed on this blog in the post ‘The Grammar of Substance II’.

 

What is an ornament?

The irrational, magic, the attribution of value and value creation, media critique and ornament and decoration are all aspects in Moulton’s work, and some of Jorn’s favourite subjects, so I decided to discuss Moulton’s work through the lens of Asger Jorn’s text ‘What is an ornament?’ from 1948. Throughout the text run a couple of recurring concerns in Jorn’s (earlier) writings: a critique on functionalist architecture, a critique on capitalism and prefabrication, his belief in the interconnectness between things (which leads to the necessity for what he called ‘a living art’), and his firm belief in the capacity of the artist to create the best possible environment for mankind.

The first paragraph of ‘What is an ornament?’ is called ‘On the life and movement occurring in all substances’. It starts out stating that “Matter consists of substances in motion that have different composition values and consistencies. At the interface between two substances engaged in mutual motion, we find the catalyst for that which we describe as the wave formation of matter.” Jorn importantly adds that “There is a cohesion that exists within the reaction forms inherent in different substances and this includes that of mankind.”(Please note that in this blog entry all English citations from ‘What is an ornament?’ come from Fraternité Avant Tout– Asger Jorn’s writings on art and architecture, 1938-1958, ed. Ruth Baumeister, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2011).

Furthermore, Jorn addresses various aspects of the ornament:

The first point Jorn makes is that ornamentation is the geometry of life (of matter) itself. He then explains the difference between a naturalist and a materialist way of working, eventually stating that for the material artist, nothing (not even thought processes) can be immaterial in the deepest sense of this word. I will go into these issues and their implications later on. He also discusses what he calls “the tragic history of the ornament in art”, asserting that there are two different interpretations of the ornament in art:

1. The ornament as monumental decoration which seeks to form a finite whole, and becomes static ornamentation. Examples are: classicist Renaissance art, and various forms of neo classicism.
2. The ornament as spontaneous arabesque, which manifests itself as a set of elements within a greater whole. This is ‘moving’ and hence dynamic ornamentation. It is about organic cohesion. To be found in the art forms of all primitive people, art of the Orient, prehistoric until Romanesque monumentalism set in. From that moment on there has been a constant reappearance and disappearance  of dynamic ornamentation (Baroque, Rococo, Empire, Art Nouveau. (Jorn: Static forms have a tendency to become dynamic because dynamic art is the natural way of things)

Jorn then points at the fact that art itself (in the western world) became split into two categories – the higher, or classical art and folk/banal or spontaneous art. He connects the appearance and disappearance of static and dynamic ornamentation to economic and political changes. This basic point, that the way we deal with ornamentation is influenced by economic and political factors seems to be wholeheartedly confirmed by various contemporary scholars, including Professor Jörg H. Gleiter, who is specialized in the history of the ornament. In ‘Ornament: The Battleground of Theory’ he writes: “Every time the question of ornament arises, it indicates a fundamental structural change which is therefore seen as a crisis and a major upheaval in culture. It is precisely in times of radical cultural change that the question of ornament resurfaces, such as for example at the beginning the 20th century with the transition from production by hand to production by machine, or in the second half of the 20th century with the transition to the structural and post-structural processes of postmodernism. Today too, on the cusp of the change from the mechanical to the digital age, the talk is of the “revival of ornament”. Gleiter’s text can be downloaded here: ”https://www.academia.edu/357179/Ornament_The_Battleground_of_Theory

I would like to return now to the first point that Jorn makes in his text: ornamentation is the geometry of life (of matter) itself, it is “the grammar of substance”. The examination and negotiation of the relation between the materiality of the art work and its discursive meanings, between matter and mind in general, were a central concern throughout Jorn’s practice. The first paragraph of Jorn’s ‘What is an ornament?’ starts out stating that “Matter consists of substances in motion that have different composition values and consistencies. At the interface between two substances engaged in mutual motion, we find the catalyst for that which we describe as the wave formation of matter.” Think of the patterns that the wind creates in the clouds, or in the sand, or the way that sound and light interact etc. Jorn importantly adds that “this cohesion that exists within the reaction forms inherent in different substances, includes that of mankind.”

Jorn illustrates his ideas with several images, including the one below for which he provides a long caption saying: “An ornament? No, a drawing of the orbital paths of a radium atom. Within the most basic elements of matter, ornamentation exists as an objective reality and facilitates mankind’s subjective appreciation of all forms of ornamentation, which is nothing less than the grammar of substance; the geometry of life itself.”

The examination and negotiation of the relation between the materiality of the art work and its discursive meanings, between matter and mind in general, were a central concern throughout Jorn’s practice. The first paragraph of Jorn’s ‘What is an ornament?’ starts out stating that “Matter consists of substances in motion that have different composition values and consistencies. At the interface between two substances engaged in mutual motion, we find the catalyst for that which we describe as the wave formation of matter.” Think of the patterns that the wind creates in the clouds, or in the sand, or the way that sound and light interact etc. Jorn importantly adds that ‘this cohesion that exists within the reaction forms inherent in different substances, includes that of mankind.’

On another page Jorn combines a representation of the earth’s rotational curves, a cross section of the human muscle, the map of a Mediaeval town and ‘Australian sand decoration’.

His caption with the first image is:“A Flower? No, a representation of the earth’s rotational curves within its phases of movement. In every aspect of matter from the smallest atom to the whole universe, we find the same pattern of movements as those created, not just flowers but mankind itself. Everything is reflected within everything else.”

Jorn’s remarks about the interconnectedness of things and humans, of matter in general, about how “everything is reflected in everything else” made me think of some of the images from Shana Moulton’s ‘Whispering Pines 4′, where her alter ego Cynthia goes to see a spiritual healer for her hands and gets sound medication.

Her head shells produce a warm male voice and while listening I caught phrases such as “my true and dynamic nature” , “perpetually transcending” “I’m intimately connected to everything” “”I am more than my physical body. I am limitless.” The cure seems to work, and we soon see Cynthia in various scenarios that literally visualize the words of the healing voice:

The Golden Spiral (which Moulton refers to in the video) represents two well-known shapes in sacred geometry: the golden mean or golden ratio (phi) spiral and the Fibonacci spiral. The unique thing about Phi is that it seems to be a geometrical blueprint for life itself and can be found incorporated in all known organic structures; from the bone structure of human beings to the seed pattern of a sunflower. (think again of Jorn: everything is reflected in everything else)

Materialisms

Let us for now return to Jorn’s theory of materiality, which is inspired by thinkers such as Karl Marx, Susanne Langer, Gaston Bachelard, and the physicist Niels Bohr – all of whom emphasized – in different ways – the role of physical matter in human thinking. In ´What is an ornament?´ Jorn states (as always, from the perspective of artistic practice) that “the materialist acknowledges that as a human being he is part of the materials and substances, can not be separated from nature.” For the materialist artist, Jorn says, human thought processes are instigated by the substances themselves, and are synonymous with the reaction form which these substances have, because thought (which in itself is immaterial in nature) cannot avoid the natural laws pertaining to matter. For the material artist, nothing (not even thought processes) can be immaterial in the deepest sense of this word.

I would like to relate these thoughts to the interaction between ‘Whispering Pines Cynthia’, and the objects from the health industry, the overlooked marginalia, and the poor thrift store objects that she surrounds herself with.

In the majority of the ‘Whispering Pines’ works, to Cynthia’s surprise many of the objects turn out to possess totemic power, agency lies in the objects, and their properties and associations acquire the power to shape the narrative. And even though the results are never what Cynthia or the viewer might expect, the objects’ magic sometimes even turn out to possess healing powers.

To Asger Jorn, and other members of the international Cobra group (1948-1951) which he helped establish, the idea to look at the world and depict it through a child’s perspective as it were, was of great importance. In the case of Jorn it was a decision informed by a desire for (social) change. I wondered in what way this also could apply to Shana Moulton. In the light of this it was interesting to read that in one online interview, Shana said her tutors at De Ateliers in Amsterdam were very critical of her work, and asked her if she was trying to make children’s television. Perhaps they were referring to Shana’s use of the idea of totemic power in objects, to her depicting a world of animate things rather than passive objects?

Contemporary philosopher Jane Bennett however, in her publication “Vibrant Matter – a political ecology of things”, actually tries to actively remind us of the capacity we had as a child to think of things animate. Bennett stresses the urgency to rethink “the idea of matter as passive stuff, as raw, brute, or inert”, and claims that it is time “to acknowledge that the world isn’t divided into dull matter (it, things) and vibrant life (us, beings). The quarantines of matter and life encourage us to ignore the vitality of matter and the lively powers of material formations, such as the way omega-3 fatty acids can alter human moods or the way our trash is not “away” in landfills but generating lively streams of chemicals and volatile winds of methane as we  speak.” She argues that politics needs to be ‘ecological’, not in the classical sense of that term (i.e. focused on stable interdependencies between species) but in a more ‘vitalist’ sense that de-privileges humans. “By ‘vitality’”, she explains she means, “the capacity of things – edibles, commodities, storms, metals – not only to impede or block the will and designs of humans, but also to act as quasi-agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own.”

It is exactly this “vitality of matter” that Shana Moulton is emphasizing in an artistic and humorous way in her work, and which also seems of crucial importance in Jorn’s words, and Jorn’s works – both in terms of subject, and in terms of dealing with the material.

Based on ‘What is an ornament?’ and other texts by Jorn, I would conclude that according to him, the material world cannot be seen as passive, pre-shaped objects waiting for active subjects to observe and describe. It has its own agency and is constituted partly by its own force and partly by the way we perceive it.

Holism/New Age

I find it important to stress that with the parallels that I draw between Jorn and Shana Moulton’s work (who is obviously flirting with New Age) I have no intention to communicate that Jorn’s notions on interconnectedness have anything to do with holism. Philosopher Tim Morton critiques holism for “being ironically opposed to a truly profound ecological view”. He says: “The reason is simple: when you start to think about how according to holism the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. This means that at some level there is already fragmentation. It also means that the parts are ultimately replaceable. This gives rise to all kinds of ethical consequences, for instance the idea that it doesn’t matter much to Planet Earth if humans become extinct, or even the idea that humans are a kind of virus—a whole could have faulty components that might need to be cleansed or replaced.” http://philosophyinatimeoferror.com/2010/05/10/tim-morton-the-interview/Morton’s critique explains why I felt a great need to come to terms with Shana’s tongue-in-cheek flirtations with New Age, during the preparations for the talk at Nieuwe Vide, as I have no intentions to create the impression of Jorn as ‘New Age avant la lettre’!.

However, New Age takes a special place in Californian culture. To refer to a quote that Shana Moulton send me from the publication The Alchemy of Trash by Erik Davis: “(…) spirituality, for us (Californians) anyway, takes place in the midst of the market and its commodified fantasies. This feedback loop is especially true in California, where esoteric spirituality has long been a part of a feverish and mercantile popular culture rife with trash. What religious seeking and California culture share most essentially is an investment in fantasy — fantasy not simply as “illusion,” but as the forms that fuse imagination and desire. As both ironic and populist fans of low-brow culture can attest, the ferocity of fantasy can lend a delirious dreamlike power to corny things like UFO cults and commercial entertainments like B-movies or comic books.”

It is in this culture that Shana’s work needs to be contextualized, in relation to which, as she also explains herself in our conversations “her goal has been to ride some line between absurdity and sincerity.” I would conclude that – the core question apparently being whether the whole is a sum of parts, or an undividable whole – Shana eventually seems to undermine the ‘holistic’ perspective of New Age. As Cynthia always seems surprised about the ‘totemic’ power of the objects, doesn’t seem to have any control over the totemic actions taking place, the ‘vibrancy’ of the objects, to speak with Jane Bennett, seems intrinsic, and not added to the existing object. This is a crucial thought for Bennett, which indicates that the whole is not the sum of parts, but that everything is already there.

Also, Shana’s aesthetics flirt with New Age, but her very rudimentary video technique, quick solutions and spontaneous-looking editing process, undermine and contrast with the New Age ‘all-is-beautiful and harmonic aesthetics’ at the same time. Here, we see no harmonious synthesis, but a disjunctive one, that makes it impossible to complete immerse in the spirit of New Age. Let me conclude by observing that Asger Jorn’s attitude is probably best characterized as ironic, humorous, playful, and self-contradictory and that luckily, Shana Moulton’s ornamented universe seems to have come into existence with a similar attitude.

L’ARCHITECTURE SAUVAGE – ASGER JORN’S CRITIQUE AND CONCEPT OF ARCHITECTURE

Within the framework of my research into Asger Jorn´s writing and thinking I organize public sessions with special guests at a variety of venues. The guest´s practice, knowledge, insights, or responses are informative to my research, or steer the direction I take on a particular topic. The sessions also often respond to the context of the hosting institution, or to a specific request. Making the sessions public is a way to share and enter into a dialogue with the audiences.

L’ architecture sauvage was a talk and interview with Silkeborg-based researcher, critic and teacher Ruth Baumeister at Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam. This session took place Saturday 22 February 2014.

Rob Voerman’s architectural installation ‘The Fifth Season’ conceptually and physically framed the event. As an artist, for the past few years Rob has been creating large-scale installations that are accessible to visitors. The Fifth Season has an additional layer or function, which is to bring people together for meetings, talks, and dinners revolving around the central question of how art and engagement can co-exist. One source of inspiration for Rob´s installation were the ideals of the Bauhaus School. Architect Mies van der Rohe worked within Bauhaus (last director 1930-1933) before moving to the United States in 1937. Here, he designed various iconic buildings that art historically speaking are considered the basis for modern day skyscrapers. Despite the fact that Bauhaus was known for its ideological and socialist character, the buildings Van der Rohe designed were mostly expensive hotels for the upper class. ´The Fifth Season´ is particularly inspired by Van der Rohe’s Seagram building in New York dating from 1958. The Seagram Building is one of the best known buildings by Van der Rohe and right from the start it housed the elitist Four Seasons restaurant. In the 1950s artist Mark Rothko was commissioned to create a series of paintings for the restaurant. The story goes that that Rothko accepted the commission but without telling anyone decided to create “something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room.” (Wikipedia) By the time the works were installed however, Rothko decided that the works would “be nothing more than a decorative element in a space where the rich enjoyed their overpriced dinners”, and took the paintings back.

In respect to Asger Jorn, the vocabulary that Voerman has been using to talk about the ‘Fifth Season’ bears some striking resemblances. Voerman speaks about his installation in terms of “a living installation” in which people can sleep, eat, work and meet – Jorn spoke of “a living art”. Voerman speaks of “the complexity of the interconnectedness of systems” in relation to the fact that worldwide problems are so big and complex that we seem to be passed the possibility to change things, as also scientist, environmentalist and futurist James Lovelock claims, whereas Jorn throughout his life worked on the development of no less then “a complete revision of the existing philosophical system” from the perspective of an artist, building on ideas from different fields ranging from physics, mathematics, economics, anthropology, history etc.

In short: a very suitable setting for Baumeister’s talk, which she had structured around four citations from Asger Jorn:

“Functionalism is a construct designed by those without desires – that is, for dead people.” (‘Menneskeboliger eller tankekonstruktioner i jernbeton’, in: Arkitekten, Ugehæfte, Copenhagen, Vol. 49, No. 16/17, 1947)

“Bauhaus is an artistic inspiration, not a doctrine…” (From a letter from Jorn to Max Bill)

“The house must not be a machine to live in, but a machine to shock and capture. A machine of human and universal expression. This is new architecture.” (Letter of Asger Jorn to Enrico Baj, 1953)

“Living architecture […] is expressed in “home-made” housing forms by the ordinary man and craftsman which nowadays flourishes in our garden colonies. […]” (‘Menneskeboliger eller tankekonstruktioner i jernbeton’, in: Arkitekten, Ugehæfte, Copenhagen, Vol. 49, No. 16/17, 1947)

Baumeister’s talk was followed by an interview:

HdB: While working on the interview with you on my blog we found out that there are more issues that we would like to address. The session here at Upstream Gallery is a good moment to ask you more about Jorn’s relationship to technology, especially within the discourse of primitivism in architecture. I do know that Jorn has always been interested in science, but I can’t remember reading anything specific about technology as such, or how this would relate to the discourse of primitivism. Could you first say something more about that?

RB: Asger Jorn certainly did not elaborate on technology in architecture as much as he did on the relationship between science and art in his theories, but he does take a clear position. In Pour la forme he states that he is not against functionalism as long as it is for the benefit of people. But if it becomes an end in itself and thus dictates the life of people, then it becomes a problem.

I would argue that he takes the same position when it comes to technology. And even though he criticizes the heroisation of technology by the early century avant-garde, e.g. the futurists, Le Corbusier, Gropius, etc., it does not mean that he is critical of technology in principal. That is also what distinguishes his reception of primitivism from the one by the arts& crafts movement, for example. While Morris and Ruskin reject what technological progress and industrialization has brought about and propagate instead a return to a pre-industrial production and society, Jorn in general accepts developments of industrialization and technology and looks into the future.

If you look at his artistic work, the mural for the Statsgymnasium in Aarhus is a good example for this. You could argue, that he took on the methodological approach of prefabricated industrial production and applied it to a very archaic, if you want “primitive” crafts as ceramics. He created this relief of enormous dimension, by dividing it into over a 1000 singular pieces that he formed, burnt, colored and burnt again in a workshop in Italy and then loaded the whole thing onto a train, shipped it to Aarhus, where it was eventually mounted on site. For the craft production of ceramics, that was very unconventional and certainly technologically advanced.

Thus, the way Jorn created this art piece comes down to his effort to renew an atavistic artistic technique by introducing a new methodological approach. Similar developments you can see in the contemporary digital crafting of ceramic tiles for example.

HdB: One of the other, related issues that we wanted to touch upon is regarding Jorn’s belief that architecture should not be the materialization of a preconceived plan. I think that in relation to this, you wanted to bring up contemporary digital technology as a way to open up new prospects for creating a new architecture, an architecture that can adapt to change (as was one of Jorn’s major demands). Could you tell us more about these developments, and perhaps give some examples?

RB: In his criticism of functionalist architecture, Jorn hit the point of what architects and planners struggle with today, especially when it comes to urban planning. Most often, before a plan materializes, it is outdated and that questions the discipline of planning as such. In his theories, Jorn makes a plea for a living architecture, which he defines as an architecture that is capable of adapting to the ever changing needs of its users. Architecture, as it has been practiced traditionally as well as by the avant-garde of Jorn´s time, works with preconceived ideals, that have a very limited flexibility and are therefore in general not capable to adapt to the ever changing needs of people.

Roberto Matta, for example, whom Jorn met in the late 1930ies in Paris, was originally educated as an architect, worked for Le Corbusier, but finally resigned from architecture and devoted himself entirely to the arts. The reason for this was that he could not identify with any architectural approach and claims, for a living architecture, for spaces, that should be adaptable to human beings. The problem both, Jorn and Matta bring up here is that life is a changing entity while architecture is static. Both Jorn and Matta write in their theories about how to introduce the aspect of time and process.

What would open up new perspectives nowadays for them are the recent developments in parameter planning for example, where the parameters that constitute the planning process can be modified throughout the process. When it comes to your question of primitivism, contemporary development of participatory planning are also interesting, where a good share of what was formerly the work of the architect, especially for the housing sector, is now taken over by other participants, e.g. users, laymen, etc.

HdB: Jorn’s ‘primitivism’ is very much in line with the idea that any human action, institution or custom is at its purest at the moment of inception, and this idea very much informed his thinking about architecture, and its role in society. How do you feel that this stands in relation to Jorn as a highly ethically and politically motivated artist, a position that seems to precede and pervade anything he did as an artist? Would you agree with me, that the rhetoric of ‘spontaneity’ connected to his practice sometimes seems to be at odds with that? Or should I rethink my idea of what spontaneity is when it comes to Jorn?

RB: First of all, I would avoid talking about purism when it comes to Jorn´s ideas in general. What he does is criticizing Western (architectural) culture and in this respect he argues, that every child could do better, because he or she had not been “spoiled” by this what he conceives as indoctrination. I do not see this to be a contradiction to the fact that he is a highly ethically and politically motivated artist, the contrary. In addition to that, I do not see why as an artist you could not be ethically and politically motivated and work spontaneously at the same time? Apart from that, I think his practice is highly complex and differentiated. Depending on which art work you would choose, spontaneity would play a different role. Luckily, especially once he was internationally recognized and sold well, he was frantic about repeating himself and therefore searched for new means of artistic expressions all of his life. This is what makes him so interesting for me as an artist, but, of course, difficult, if you want to pin point him on one specific approach or methodology he uses.

HdB: Jorn was brought up in a very religious family, but stepped out of the religious community at a rather young age to engage with Marxist politics and philosophical questions concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it, as well as theories from a range of other disciplines. This led him to take on a ‘materialist’ stance, a view on the world that doesn’t seem entirely devoid of spiritual/religious aspects. I’m not sure what terminology to use …  Think for instance of the way that he talks about ornamention as the ‘geometry of life’, and as ‘the grammar of substance’, how all matter including human beings are part of one and the same and how the movement of each affects the movements of other(s), or other matter. Would you feel inclined to relate his religious upbringing to his later attitude towards life?

RB: To me, the answer to this is very obvious and therefore rather short. He did refuse his religious upbringing, because of all the restraints that came with it. He did not resent spiritualism, the contrary. If you look at his oeuvre, a lot of his work is very spiritual and the fact that he declared himself to be an atheist, does not mean that religion would not play an important role for him anymore. Especially if you look at the titles of his art works for example, many of them are quotes or recall scenes from the bible. When it comes to the vacuum, that a rejection of God leaves, the “Sinnfrage” it unevitably poses, I think he simply substituted religion with art and he was certainly not the only modernist artist who did so. Just think of Wassily Kandinsky´s book “Über das Geistige in der Kunst”, München, 1912, which was published in many editions and read by a whole generation of artists.

HdB: You also indicated that you would like to refer to Le Corbusier’s famous statement that the house should be a machine for living, in contrast to Jorn’s idea of a house as a machine for expression which is connected to his critique of the modernist paradigm of “Form follows function”. The word ‘expression’ has very strong connotations that have to do with the personal, with authorship …. I know that Jorn had strong opinions about that. I think that I read somewhere that he for instance insisted on the idea that a painter has to sign his paintings. Not as a mark of his genius, but to be transparent about its process of making. How do you perceive Jorn’s use of the term ‘expression’ in relation to notions of authorship?

RB: I never got across the quote that you refer to, but I think it is not so much the authorship as such, that he wants to emphasize, but the subjectivity that lies in art and architecture as a human expression. This is what he wanted to see emphazise and nurtured and a lot of modernist artists and architects strived to eliminate at the same time. In terms of architecture, Jorn pointed at the façade of a building as a surface for expression and a means of communication. It is important to remember here, that he realized the power of architecture in this respect when he worked for Le Corbusier at the 1937 world exhibition in Paris, Le Corbusier´s Pavillon de Temps Nouveaux was explicitly instrumentalized to communicate the political agenda of the Popular Front on the one hand and Le Corbusier’s and Ciam’s agenda for architecture and urbanism on the other. This experience cannot be estimated enough when it comes to Jorn’s understanding and being an artist. As a very young age, he discovered left winged politics for himself and that coincided more or less with his discovery of the arts. For the first time in Paris, at the world exhibition he sees both, politics and arts coming together. Throughout his whole life, Jorn had an agenda – politically, artistically and also personally – and art was a means or maybe even a necessity for him to express it.

HdB: Jorn tried to change the relation between science and art by diminishing the dominant functionalism of science. As you have pointed out also elsewhere on my blog, this has certainly a high relevance for us living in what Guy Debord (1967) called the “Society of the Spectacle”, in which authentic social life has been replaced with its mere representation. In terms of architecture the representation of a building in mass media has become more important than the building itself. You mention however many more issues that Jorn raises which are also connected with the discussion in architecture theory today: identity in architecture and urbanism, architecture as an instrument of social policy, parameter design, to name a few. Could you say more about these connections?

RB: As I have explained earlier, he learned about the power of architecture as a means of expression at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. Upon his return to Denmark after this stay, he engages into the debate for a tower for the Arne Jacobsen´s design for the Aarhus City Hall for example. Jacobsen won the competition for the design of a new City Hall, which raised a debate among general public and politicians, who claimed, that this building could be anything, an office building, school, etc. Instead, they claimed a building that they could identified with and demanded a tower, as a sign that is visible in the skyline of the city. Jorn and his friend, the Danish architect Robert Dahlman Olsen, whom he had met during his stay in Paris, took side of the people and in a couple of articles explained the capacity and necessity of a tower as a means to transmit identity.

Regarding the issue of architecture as a means of social policy, I think Jorn, as much as modern architects themselves totally overestimated themselves in this respect. A piece of architecture or urban fabric is a very complex entity and there are many factors, e.g. climate, investment parameters, building law, ect. that determine what it is, not only the idea and/or the will of a single architect.

HdB: Now you have finished your doctoral thesis, I would be curious to know if so far your findings have been consistent with your previous findings on Jorn, or whether you have across anything truly surprising?

RB: Unfortunately, I have to correct you here. I have not finished my doctoral thesis now, but I already finished it in 2009. That means that it took me another 5 years to revise and publish it in English, meaning that I continuously encountered new surprising findings. I came to realize though, that I simply had to stop, because there is no end to a study on Jorn, unless you set it yourself. Right after Architecture Sauvage, Asger Jorn´s Critique and Concept of Architecture went into print by the end of last year, I started another book on Jorn, Asger Jorn, in image, words and forms. It is a general, image based introduction to his oeuvre in English, Danish and German, which will come out at the end of this month and I feel that this is enough now. Time to burry my hero! Who would care about what a 100 year old fellow has to say these days anyhow…?!

HILDE GOES ASGER WITH MATTIN (II)

Within the framework of my research into Asger Jorn´s writing and thinking I organize public sessions with special guests at a variety of venues. The guest´s practice, knowledge, insights, or responses are informative to my research, or steer the direction I take on a particular topic. The sessions also often respond to the context of the hosting institution, or to a specific request. Making the sessions public is a way to share and enter into a dialogue with the audiences.

On Sunday 12 January 2014 a public session at Casco, office for Art, Design and Theory in Utrecht took place including a lecture by me, and an improvised performance by Mattin. http://new.cascoprojects.org/

The lecture I presented is an adaptation of the one for the Athens Biennial. Still largely based on Jorn’s text Value and Economy – Critique of political economy and the exploitation of the unique (1959), I relate some of Jorn’s ideas on the relationship between artist and society to contemporary notions of cultural entrepreneurship within a political situation of “repressive liberalism”, as some sociologists call it. For my lecture I specifically looked at the essay ‘Repressive Liberalism: The Dutch Cultural Policy System’ by sociologist Pascal Gielen (Kunstlicht 1/2, 2013). In his article Gielen seems to suggest that it would be possible to give art a certain independence from conventional ideological idealism (as was Jorn’s stance), and many of his ideas seem tightly connected to Jorn’s notions on value, his concept of art, and the relationship between art and society .

My lecture was followed by a performance by Mattin. He had asked Casco’s director Binna Choi and artist and writer Alexi Kukuljevic to perform the roles of De Jong and Dubuffet using Casco´s material conditions as material for improvisation in an institutional setting. The performance subsequently included the noise of metal foldable chairs stacked onto a pile, me reading out a text from one the book’s in Casco’s library, the sound of a printer and more. Casco at the time, was involved in the collective research ‘(Un)usual Business’ (a research on a new form of economy based on ‘weak’ theory of ‘community economies’) so the text that I was asked to read aloud seamlessly fitted to the lecture that I just held preceding Mattin’ performance. Interestingly enough the topic was similar, but the perspective highly contrasted. Instead of addressing the false rhetorics of freedom in our current ‘market society’, this text was claiming that over the past 30 or 40 decades (in the western world) more resources had been allocated to the arts, and more people had had the opportunity to officially educate themselves as artists.

The set-up by Mattin was aimed to highlight our practices not as acts of freedom of expression in a neutral context but as being embedded within a complex set of interests including economic and symbolic values. The performance created a heightened awareness of both sound and silence, and also created the feeling of uncomfortableness in many people as they were turned into participants, asked to use their own voice and verbalize opinions. This way, the performance gradually shifted from something more abstract and strange to a critical discursive setting. To Mattin “the latter part represented not a moment of agency but instead represented a general paralysis of artistic practices, being able to comment about anything but not finding ways to cut through the determinations imposed by the market.”

HILDE GOES ASGER WITH MATTIN (I)

Within the framework of my research into Asger Jorn´s writing and thinking I organize public sessions with special guests at a variety of venues. The guest´s practice, knowledge, insights, or responses are informative to my research, or steer the direction I take on a particular topic. The sessions also often respond to the context of the hosting institution, or to a specific request. Making the sessions public is a way to share and enter into a dialogue with the audiences.

´Hilde goes Asger with Mattin´ consisted of several activities. Saturday 11 January 2013, the day preceding a performance by Mattin, an artist based in Stockholm, the two of us visited Amsterdam-based artist Jacqueline de Jong. De Jong, a former member of the Situationist International (like Jorn himself) was involved in the musical experiments by Asger Jorn and Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). Dubuffet, who was invited by Jorn to conduct collaborative experiments at the end of 1960, has written about these experiments in 1961, an English translation of this text can be found on Ubuweb via this link: http://www.ubu.com/sound/dubuffet.html.

Mattin himself works mostly with noise and improvisation. He has also written about improvisation, free software and against the notion of intellectual property (see also his text in the Value and Economy category on this blog). Mattin asked to arrange a meeting with Jacqueline de Jong to talk about Jorn and Dubuffet’s musical experiments. We ended up discussing a variety of topics, but it is De Jong’s account of the musical experiments that sticks with me most.

De Jong told us that at the end of December in 1960, she and Jorn, who loved music and could play the trumpet and violin, took a taxi to a Parisian shop that sold all kinds of western and non-western musical instruments. Jorn approached the shop-owner and asked for as many instruments as possible for the available amount of money. Then Jorn and De Jong went off to Jean Dubuffet, the taxi loaded with instruments that for the most part, neither of them knew how to play. Dubuffet had bought a portable Grundig TK35 tape recorder, and they tried to find all possible ways to create sound with the instruments, while Jacqueline de Jong made vocal contributions (such as screams).

During the conversation it became clear that not only it didn’t matter to Jorn that he had no idea of how to play the instruments, it was what in fact attracted him about it. This way of working, of engaging with the world of matter around him, typifies Jorn. Jorn considered himself a ‘materialist artist’, and I would say that his approach to the instruments is completely in line with this attitude. Similar as in painting or ceramics he would consider a line as “the track a certain substance leaves behind as it passes another substance” (Jorn in ‘What is an ornament?’,  1949), the sound would be the result of his interactions with the materiality of the objects. This unrestrained and experimental approach was of crucial importance to Jorn, who was convinced that it is art’s ability to play and the artist’s inclination to take risks that generates knowledge, change and hence progress.

After our visit to Jacqueline de Jong, Mattin and I went to meet the participants of a semi-public reading session. The participants of the reading session consisted of an intimate circle of people that had shown an interest in Jorn over the past year. Upon Mattin’s suggestion we read the last 20 pages of Jorn’s ‘Value and Economy’, and consequently discussed a variety of topics in relation to our own practices. In hindsight the most striking about the reading session to me is, that Jorn’s outspoken ideas about the position of the artist in society, and especially his willingness as an artist to take responsibility over what he called “the best possible environment for mankind” resonated so strongly. The need for finding ways to take on that responsibility (albeit perhaps not with the pretension to be able to create ‘the best possible environment for mankind’) seems to have regained a certain urgency. This became especially clear when graphic designer Richard Niessen discussed his motivations for starting the ‘Seven Rulers Tracing Board’, a ‘collective’ or ‘platform’ for designers to think through responsible and sustainable design practice. See also http://www.platformbk.nl/2013/12/initiatief-van-de-7-linialen/(text in Dutch)

PRODUCERS-PARASITES-HOSTS (Athens Mix)

Within the framework of my research into Asger Jorn´s writing and thinking I organize public sessions with special guests at a variety of venues. The guest´s practice, knowledge, insights, or responses are informative to my research, or steer the direction I take on a particular topic. The sessions also often respond to the context of the hosting institution, or to a specific request. Making the sessions public is a way to share and enter into a dialogue with the audiences.

‘Producers-Parasites-Hosts’ was a collaborative performative lecture with Amsterdam-based artist Annabel Howland and part of “The Non-Serious Lectures” (on economy and value) programme at the Athens Biennial – AGORA 2013. It took place on Thursday 28 November, 2013, in the disused National Bank of Greece Building (the former Stock Exchange), in Athens. Using the building of the former Athens Stock Exchange as its main venue, AB4 proposed AGORA not only as a place of exchange and interaction, but also as an ideal setting for critique. The main focus of this programme was to highlight and discuss the shortcomings of the economy.

I invited Annabel Howland to turn part of her work-in-progress ‘Producers-Parasites-Hosts’ into a 20-minute, multi-channel sound piece with slides, ‘Producers-Parasites-Hosts (Athens Mix)’. The work contains a multitude of voices, including research-scientists-turned-investment-bankers, a leading evolutionary biologist, economists, and an HFT expert, speaking about parasitical and productive relations. Parasites never benefit their hosts. So why would cooperators benefit their hosts at their own expense? And what is the role of ‘cheaters’? Through intricate editing, Howland builds up a speculative web that draws lines between art, finance and science. A documentation version of her sound performance can be found here: http://www.annabelhowland.nl/blog/athens-mix/

Howland’s artistic research into the world of finance and mutually beneficial relationships in biology stimulated me to develop a lecture that looks into Jorn’s ideas on the position of the artist in society. The lecture is to a large extent based on Jorn’s publication ‘Value and Economy – A Critique of Political Economy and The Exploitation of the Unique’, but is also indebted to Graham Birtwistle’s insightful publication ‘Living Art – Asger Jorn’s comprehensive theory of art between Helhesten and Cobra (1946-1949)’. For the lecture in Athens I compiled a somewhat ironic give-and-take chart, between artist and society. When Jorn provides ‘arguments’ that cannot be quantified, or balanced out on a chart, I discard them and proceed with explaining his notion of a ‘living art’. Here is a link to a sound recording http://www.annabelhowland.nl/blog/athens-mix/.

OVERVIEW PUBLIC SESSIONS

In the framework of my research into Asger Jorn´s writing and thinking I organize public sessions with special guests. The guest´s practice,  knowledge, insights, or responses are informative to my research, or steer the direction that I take on a particular topic. Oftentimes, the sessions also responded to the context of the hosting institution, or to a specific request. Making the sessions public is a way to share and dialogue with audiences. Below is an overview of the the sessions that took place so far. I also post more detailed reports.

 

PRODUCERS-PARASITES-HOSTS (ATHENS MIX) 

A collaborative performative lecture with Amsterdam-based artist Annabel Howland as part of “The Non-Serious Lectures” (on economy and value) programme of the Athens Biennial – AGORA, 2013. The lecture took place Thursday 28 November 2013, at the deserted National Bank of Greece Building (former Stock Exchange), in Athens.

 

HILDE GOES ASGER WITH MATTIN

Hilde goes Asger with Mattin consisted of a semi-public reading session, a performance by Stockholm-based (sound) artist Mattin and a lecture by myself at Casco, office for art, theory and Design in Utrecht, NL. The performance and lecture took place Sunday 12 Jan 2014, coinciding with “Utrecht’s Cultural Sunday”, and as part of Casco’s collective research (Un)usual Business on a new form of economy based on “weak” theory of “community economies.”

 

L’ARCHITECTURE SAUVAGE – ASGER JORN’S CRITIQUE AND CONCEPT OF ARCHITECTURE

A talk and interview with Silkeborg-based researcher, critic and teacher Ruth Baumeister at Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam. This session took place Saturday 22 February 2014. Rob Voerman’s architectural installation ‘The Fifth Season’ conceptually and physically framed the event.

 

THE GRAMMAR OF SUBSTANCE

A talk by Berlin-based artist Shannon Bool and myself in the framework of the exhibition ‘Shana Moulton – episodes from Whispering Pines’ at Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem, NL. The talks took place on 16 March 2014, coinciding with ‘de Haarlemse Lente’.

 

THINKING THROUGH MATTER

A talk by Ferdinand Ahm Krag and myself in the framework of the exhibition ‘Asger Jorn – Restless Rebel’ at the Statens Museum for Kunst / National Gallery, Copenhagen. The talks took place Saturday 22 March 2014.

 

COMPARATIVE VANDALISM

‘Comparative Vandalism’ was an exchange of thoughts on Asger Jorn’s Scandinavian Institute of Comparative Vandalism hosted by Officin Books, Paper and Prints Copenhagen. With Niels Henriksen, Ellef Prestsæter and Nicolas Malevé as special guests and with Søren Andreasen, Helle Brøns, Louise Hold Sidenius, Marie Kølbæk Iversen, Jørgen Michaelsen, and Teresa Østergaard Pedersen. The session took place Sunday 6 July,  2014.

 

PILLAR HUGGERS

A workshop and an exhibition at Or Gallery, Berlin. With Antonis Pittas, Johann Arens, Jay Tan, Klaus Weber, Christoph Keller, Hilde de Bruijn, Shannon Bool, Hadley+Maxwell. Exhibition dates: January 23 – April 18, 2015

 

KLARA LIDÉN, PILLAR HUGGER

A lecture by me, discussing the work of Klara Lidén (1979) through the lens of Asger Jorn’s ideas on vandalism. The lecture took place on January 6, 2016.

 

ASGER JORN: THINKING IN THREES

A session with Athens-based artists Kostis Velonis and Yiannis Isidorou hosted by Circuits and Currents, the Project Space of the Athens School of Fine Art. The session took place on January 8, 2016.

ASGER JORN – THINKING IN THREES

In his writing and thinking Asger Jorn discusses and interconnects a variety of issues and fields. The lecture ‘Asger Jorn – Thinking in Threes’ is the more or less natural consequence of me trying to find a way to deal with these complexities. It introduces Jorn’s practice in an inclusive way, discussing his art, groups that he was associated with, his publishing and thinking.

 

Asger Jorn – Thinking in Threes was presented at:

– Rietveld Academy, Ceramics Department, Amsterdam (18 March 2014)

– M.F.A, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Tel-Aviv, Israel (3 November 2013)

– ADA – area for debate and art, Rotterdam (13 May 2013)

– Fabrica de Pensule, Cluj Napoca, Romania (22 June 2012)

– Artez (upon the invitation of Casco, office for art, theory and design, Arnhem, NL (7 July 2012)