The Cobra Movement in Postwar Europe: Reanimating Art (Routledge Research in Art History)

This book examines the art of Cobra, a network of poets and artists from Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam (1948–1951). Although the name stood for the organizers’ home cities, the Cobra artists hailed from countries in Europe, Africa, and the United States. This book investigates how a group of struggling young artists attempted to reinvent the international avant-garde after the devastation of the Second World War, to create artistic experiments capable of facing the challenges of postwar society. It explores how Cobra’s experimental, often collective art works and publications relate to broader debates in Europe about the use of images to commemorate violent events, the possibility of free expression in an art world constrained by Cold War politics, the breakdown of primitivism in an era of colonial independence movements, and the importance of spontaneity in a society increasingly dominated by the mass media. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, 20th-century modern art, avant-garde arts, and European history. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of figures List of plates Acknowledgments Introduction: Reanimating Art Becoming Cobra A Many-Headed Beast Reframing Cobra Notes Chapter 1 Human Animals Symbolic Savagery in Paris Living Abstraction in Denmark Primal Energy in Amsterdam Animal Magnetism in Brussels The Beastly Visions of Jorn and Constant Becoming Animal Material Evolution Notes Chapter 2 Surrealism into Cobra Belgian Surrealism and the Material Imagination Revolutionary Surrealism and Communism Reflex and Experimentalism Cobra, Surrealism, and Informel: Flexible Ties The Imaginists and Surrealism at Mid-Century A Toast to Cobra Notes Chapter 3 War, Memory, and Renewal Vandercam’s Photographs: Life Among the Ruins Appel’s “Questioning Children”: Innocence Accuses Tajiri’s “Warriors”: Sentinels for Peace The Value of Experimental Art Notes Chapter 4 Expression for All The Identity Politics of Expression Expression and Intersubjectivity Else Alfelt: Gender, Affect, and Expression Wolvecamp, Rooskens, and Corneille: Expression and Primitivism Ernest and Sonja Ferlov Mancoba: Minoritarian Humanism Universality Through Struggle Notes Chapter 5 Coda: New Networks Notes Bibliography Index "This book examines the art of Cobra, a network of poets and artists from Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam (1948-51). Although the name stood for the organizers' home cities, the Cobra artists hailed from countries in Europe, Africa, and the United States. This book investigates how a group of struggling young artists attempted to reinvent the international avant-garde after the devastation of World War II, to create artistic experiments capable of facing the challenges of postwar society. It explores how Cobra's experimental, often collective art works and publications relate to broader debates in postwar Europe about the use of images to commemorate violent events, the possibility of free expression in an art world constrained by Cold War politics, the breakdown of primitivism in an era of colonial independence, and the importance of spontaneity in a society increasingly dominated by the mass media. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, twentieth century modern art, avant-garde arts, and European history"-- Provided by publisher