Souriez Rue Froide (Defiguration) - Asger Jorn
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Description
A striking example of Asger Jorn's 'Modifications' series, where the artist subverts a traditional portrait with raw, expressive brushwork.
Asger Jorn, a founding member of the CoBrA movement, produced this work as part of his 'Modifications' series. In these pieces, Jorn acquired existing, often conventional, amateur or flea-market paintings and applied his own expressive, gestural interventions directly onto the surface. This practice aimed to disrupt the original intent of the found object, creating a dialogue between the traditional portraiture of the past and the raw, spontaneous energy of post-war European modernism.
In this specific composition, the original subject is a woman in a formal suit and hat, rendered with a degree of academic realism. Jorn has aggressively altered the facial features, applying thick, impasto paint to create exaggerated, mask-like eyes and a distorted mouth. The contrast between the relatively untouched clothing and the chaotic, visceral treatment of the face creates a tension that is characteristic of Jorn's approach to painting. The title, which translates to 'Smile Cold Street', adds a layer of irony to the unsettling transformation of the figure.
Jorn viewed these modifications as a way to liberate painting from the constraints of bourgeois taste. By defacing the original image, he forced the viewer to confront the artificiality of the portrait genre. The work does not seek to beautify or refine the subject, but rather to expose the underlying instability of the human image. The brushwork is heavy and deliberate, prioritising emotional impact over anatomical accuracy. This piece remains a significant example of Jorn's desire to challenge artistic conventions through subversion and direct action, reflecting his broader interest in the intersection of folk art, spontaneity, and critical theory.
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Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
Souriez Rue Froide (Defiguration) - Asger Jorn
Artist Biography
Asger Jorn
Born in Vejrum, Jutland in 1914, Jorn studied briefly in Paris in the late 1930s, where he attended Léger's atelier and worked with Le Corbusier on a pavilion project. During the Nazi occupation of Denmark he co-founded Helhesten, an underground cultural journal that kept experimental art alive through the war years. In 1948 he was a founding member of CoBrA, the international group that brought together artists from Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam in a loose avant-garde coalition emphasising raw expressiveness and collective mythology.
After CoBrA dissolved in 1951 he aligned briefly with the Situationist International, contributing theoretical writing alongside Guy Debord before a clean break in 1961. Over his lifetime he produced more than 2,500 works in paint, print, ceramics, and collage, and wrote over twenty books on aesthetics and political theory. He was also, incidentally, the first person to translate Franz Kafka into Danish. The major collection of his work is held at Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, which he helped establish. He died in Aarhus in May 1973.
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