Asger Jorn Quotes

Everything is in constant flux, from state to state, from good to bad and back again... only in transmutation, perpetual motion, lies truth.

A creative train of thought is set off by: the unexpected, the unknown, the accidental, the disorderly, the absurd, the impossible.

We are not disillusioned because we have no illusions... What we have and what is our strength, is our joy in life... in all its amoral aspects. That is also the basis of our contemporary art.

Beautiful, ugly, impressive, disgusting, meaningless, grim, contradictory etc … It makes no difference, as long as it is life, vigorously pouring forth.

We are sparks that must glow as brightly as possible.

To break and be able to grow together again in a better way: that is the difficult art.

The significance of something lies in its presence here and now. I don't care what it has been or what it will become. It is the experience of things that matters, the confrontation with things.

The artist's interest cannot be restricted to a single field; he must seek the highest perception of everything, of the whole and its details.

To make the material speak to man in the name of man, this is the aim and reality of art.

Being an artist is being an isolated individual.

I act with full responsibility and after extensive reflection.

Anything really new is repulsive, because it is abnormal and unreasonable.

To get anywhere, one must choose one's mistakes, I chose experimental acts.

Only my current situation has enabled me to accomplish the expensive task of demonstrating that the preferred sustenance of painting is painting.

We cannot inherit a fixed, unmoving view of life and of art from the past generation.

The goal changes from the general to the individual from need to wish, from ethics to aesthetics.

Those who try to combat the production of shoddy pictures are enemies of the best art today... It always feels tragic to see people labouring to saw off the branch they are sitting on.

To understand the magic way of thinking you have to know non-magic thinking. If you see that clearly, you will see how many magic thoughts are necessary elements even of natural science today.

True realism, materialist realism lies in the search for the expression of forms faithful to their content. But there is no content detached from human interest.

We like to learn all we need from earlier generations, but we have to find out for ourselves what we need; nobody else can do that for us.

We are not talking about a new cognition in relation to abstract art, rather a new area of cognition.

Form and substance are one and the same. Form is the life expression and substance the living painting.

The act of expressing oneself is a physical one. It materializes the thought.

During every really creative act, the artist finds himself homeless. To overcome this state he has to call up his last reserves of strength.

In the beginning was the image.

This is what aesthetics, development and progress depend upon: that we go out on thin ice.

If you add something to a painting, never let it be for aesthetic reasons. Only let it be for reasons of expression.