The Cobra Movement in Postwar Europe: Reanimating Art

311 Pages·2020·100.14 MB·English

by  Karen Kurczynski

The Cobra Movement in Postwar Europe
This book examines the art of Cobra, a network of poets and artists from Copenhagen,
Brussels, and Amsterdam (1948–1951). Although the name stood for the organizers’
home cities, the Cobra artists hailed from countries in Europe, Africa, and the United
States.
This book investigates how a group of struggling young artists attempted to
reinvent the international avant-garde after the devastation of the Second World War,
to create artistic experiments capable of facing the challenges of postwar society. It
explores how Cobra’s experimental, often collective art works and publications relate
to broader debates in Europe about the use of images to commemorate violent events,
the possibility of free expression in an art world constrained by Cold War politics,
the breakdown of primitivism in an era of colonial independence movements, and the
importance of spontaneity in a society increasingly dominated by the mass media.
This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, 20th-century modern art,
avant-garde arts, and European history.
Karen Kurczynski is Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Cover image: Karel Appel, Mens en dieren (People and Animals), 1949. Oil on canvas,
351.6 ´ 358.5 cm. Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. © 2020 Karel Appel
Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam.
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Philip M. Peek
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The Cobra Movement in Postwar Europe
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Karen Kurczynski
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Victor Deupi
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The Cobra Movement in Postwar
Europe
Reanimating Art
Karen Kurczynski
First published 2021
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Taylor & Francis
The right of Karen Kurczynski to be identifed as author of this work
has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Kurczynski, Karen, author.
Title: The Cobra movement in postwar Europe: reanimating art /
Karen Kurczynski.
Description: New York: Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2020006228 (print) | LCCN 2020006229 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138490840 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351034500 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cobra (Association) | Art and society–Europe–History–
20th century.
Classifcation: LCC N6494.C5 K87 2020 (print) | LCC N6494.C5 (ebook) |
DDC 701/.03–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006228
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006229
ISBN: 978-1-138-49084-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-03450-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
For Bill, Tal, and Layla

Contents
List of fgures ix
List of plates xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction: Reanimating Art 1
Becoming Cobra 4
A Many-Headed Beast 26
Reframing Cobra 31
Notes 33
1 Human Animals 37
Symbolic Savagery in Paris 47
Living Abstraction in Denmark 49
Primal Energy in Amsterdam 56
Animal Magnetism in Brussels 58
The Beastly Visions of Jorn and Constant 65
Becoming Animal 71
Material Evolution 74
Notes 75
2 Surrealism into Cobra 79
Belgian Surrealism and the Material Imagination 87
Revolutionary Surrealism and Communism 97
Refex and Experimentalism 108
Cobra, Surrealism, and Informel: Flexible Ties 115
The Imaginists and Surrealism at Mid-Century 123
A Toast to Cobra 126
Notes 126
3 War, Memory, and Renewal 134
Vandercam’s Photographs: Life Among the Ruins 143
Appel’s “Questioning Children”: Innocence Accuses 155
viii Contents
Tajiri’s “Warriors”: Sentinels for Peace 166
The Value of Experimental Art 175
Notes 175
4 Expression for All 180
The Identity Politics of Expression 188
Expression and Intersubjectivity 191
Else Alfelt: Gender, Affect, and Expression 196
Wolvecamp, Rooskens, and Corneille: Expression and Primitivism 207
Ernest and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba: Minoritarian Humanism 217
Universality Through Struggle 228
Notes 230
5 Coda: New Networks 237
Notes 244
Bibliography 247
Index 266
Figures
0.1 A sger Jorn and P. V. Glob, Mockup cover of “Olddansk Kunst,”
1950, featuring photograph by Lennart Larsen of Bronze Age objects
found at Fårdal, Viborg, Denmark. Photograph by Lars Bay. Museum
Jorn Archives, Silkeborg. © 2020 Donation Jorn, Silkeborg / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York / VISDA 9
0.2 Pol Bury, Front cover of Cobra 2, 1949. Linocut, 30.8 × 46 cm.
Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Amstelveen, the Netherlands.
© 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 17
0.3 H øst and Cobra artists visiting the Copenhagen zoo, 1948. L–R:
Constant, Vibeke Alfelt, Ejler Bille, Corneille, Knud Nielsen, Tony
Appel, Sonja Ferlov Mancoba with arms around Wonga Mancoba
and Kari Alfelt, Karel Appel, Erik Ortvad, Ernest Mancoba, Else
Alfelt, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Agnete Therkildsen, and Ortvad’s son.
© Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelts Museum, Herning, Denmark 21
0.4 C arl-Henning Pedersen (wall) and Klaus Jorn (door), Wall mural,
August, 1949, now destroyed. Bregnerød, Denmark. Photograph
by Robert Dahlmann Olsen. © 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / VISDA 22
0.5 A ldo van Eyck, Poets’ Cage for the frst Cobra “International
Exhibition of Experimental Art,” Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,
1949. Lower left to top: Gerrit Kouwenaar, Bert Schierbeek,
Lucebert, Jan Elburg, and Karl-Otto Götz. Word paintings by
Lucebert. Photograph by Mrs. E. Kokkoris-Syriër, courtesy of the
Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Amstelveen 23
0.6 A ldo van Eyck installation, “International Exhibition of
Experimental Artists,” 1949, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Photograph by Serge Vandercam, courtesy of the Cobra Museum
voor Moderne Kunst, Amstelveen. Works by Madeleine Szemere-
Kemeny (left wall), Corneille (painted box), Anton Rooskens (back
wall), and granite sculptures by Henry Heerup. © 2020 Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York / SABAM, Brussels 24
0.7 H enry Heerup, Den jyske nisse (The Gnome from Jutland), n.d.
Painted granite, 50 × 55 × 45 cm. Museum Jorn, Denmark. © 2020
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VISDA 25