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Asger Jorn & Per Kirkeby
This summer, The Nordic Watercolour Museum is presenting an extensive exhibition of watercolours and drawings by two of Denmark’s most significant post-war artists – Asger Jorn and Per Kirkeby. The exhibition highlights how these two artists, in different ways, combined intellectual acuity with emotional force in their art during a time of great change.
Asger Jorn (1914–1973) was one of the most influential figures of the European avant-garde art – a co-founder of the influential CoBrA movement, and a champion of spontaneous, free creation as a counterforce to convention and control. His art, filled with boundless energy, humour and philosophy, has continued to inspire generations of artists.
Per Kirkeby (1938–2018) represents another kind of artistic vision, one in which the structures of nature and time form the basis of creation. With a background in geology, he saw the world as layers and deposits, a perspective clearly reflected in his painting, sculpture, graphics and poetry. Kirkeby was one of the major renewers of neo-expressionist painting in the 1980s.
