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Museum Jorn presents James Ensor exhibition

The Museum Jorn in Silkeborg presents James Ensor exhibition on view through 5/6 2012.


James Ensor, Masques regardant une tortue [Masker ser på en skildpadde], 1894, olie på lærred, 22 x 37 cm, The Franck Deceuninck Collection

The Belgian artist James Ensor’s humorous and scary paintings of grotesque masque figures, skeletons, skulls, devil figures and his parodies on authorities and officials were an everlasting source of inspiration for the Danish Artist Asger Jorn.

As early as 1937 Asger Jorn visited an exhibition of the German collector von Garvens’s works by Ensor in Copenhagen. The exhibition made a huge impression on the young artist and Jorn was for the rest of his life preoccupied by the work of Ensor.

James Ensor’s paintings have not been shown in Denmark since 1937 and the exhibition will therefore also break new ground. Through a consistent selection of Ensor’s paintings, drawings and graphic works the exhibition will present him to the Danish public as one of the central artists in modern European art.

In 1959 and 1962 Asger Jorn modified a series of old paintings collected at flea markets in Paris. He wanted to modernize the paintings and reworked their motifs in a humorous and grotesque manner. One of the most famous of Jorn’s modifications is the absurd painting of a hanged, masked man. Jorn entitled this painting “Ainsi on s’ensor” showing his fascination of and inspiration from James Ensor.

MUSEUM JORN
GUDENÅVEJ 7-9
DK-8600 SILKEBORG
TEL: +45 8682 5388
MAIL: [email protected]
www.museumjorn.dk

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