On November 8, 1948, the artists Asger Jorn (Denmark), Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret (Belgium) and Karel Appel, Constant and Corneille (Netherlands) met spontaneously in Paris. The discussions between the very young artists led directly to the formation of the first international group of artists in Europe after the Second World War, soon to be called COBRA. They unmistakably confront the inhumanity of the systems and the regime's willingness to use violence and act in the hope of a better future.
Today, COBRA is regarded as a new departure for young artists who succeeded in forming an international community in post-war Europe and, above all, who from now on regarded life and art ("Living in Art") as an inseparable unit. As the "international front of experimental artists", their declared aim, their "dream", was not only to create a "different art", which was to be a form of play and experimentation, but above all to create a society that could only be thought of as an open society. In its artworks, COBRA did not pursue a style, but a language that was free, spontaneous and universal.
Exhibition view "COBRA. Dream, Play, Reality", Ravensburg Art Museum 2023, Photo: Wynrich Zlomke
By being on the move, working collectively and taking an interest in all forms of human expression, the artists set themselves outside the "bourgeois art canon" and against any form of hierarchy and the abstractions of modernism, which were perceived as meaningless. COBRA organized itself as an "open" movement from 1948 to 1951. There was never a declaration of dissolution or a rejection of its aims. On the contrary, the artists carried on the "spirit of COBRA" in their later developments and international careers through the 1960s and 1970s, thus becoming role models for future generations.
With works from the Selinka Collection of the Kunstmuseum Ravensburg, the Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, the ZKM in Karlsruhe and from numerous international private collections, works by over 40 artists that have rarely been shown in Germany are on display.
until June 23, 2024
