Contemporary Art Criticism, Interviews, Essays and Visual Politics
CoBrA was a European avant-garde movement founded in Paris in 1948 by artists and writers from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Its name derives from the initials of the three cities: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.
Artists including Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Constant Nieuwenhuys, Corneille and Pierre Alechinsky rejected academic conventions in favour of spontaneous gestures, intense colours, imaginary creatures and collective experimentation. This section explores CoBrA’s artists, exhibitions and connections with Art Brut, children’s drawings, folk art and post-war European culture.
Installation view, L’Art Brut de Jean Dubuffet, aux origines de la collection, Collection de l’Art Brut, Lausanne. Courtesy of Collection de l’Art Brut. Modern art searched hospitals, streets and social margins for images the academy could no longer create. Art Brut reveals who still has the power to name the outsider.
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Jorn Asger - Disquieting Ecstasy The Wild Heart In the shattered cultural landscape of post-World War II Europe, a rebellious artistic force emerged. It rejected
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Bengt Lindstrom - Le Cri From CoBrA’s Wild Energy to Nordic Myths Picture a canvas that doesn’t just sit quietly on the wall but roars
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Christian Dotremont How the Belgian poet-painter and founder of COBRA turned language into an act of resistance, and art into a fever
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Pierre Alechinsky - Central Park The Quiet Explosion of COBRA’s Graphic Soul Some artists paint to be seen. Pierre Alechinsky painted to be read. Not
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Guillaume Corneille — Cat The Nomadic Poet of COBRA Who Painted Desire into the Sky In the shadow of postwar Europe’s ruins, one artist
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Karel Appel - Questioning Children How a Dutch painter rewrote the rules of postwar art through primal expression and political instinct “If I paint like
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Jorn Asger - Paris by Night A journey through chaos, politics, and cultural vandalism Asger Oluf Jørgensen (1914–1973), known as Asger Jorn, was more than a
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