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COBRA (art movement)

COBRA or Cobra, often stylized as CoBrA, was a European avant-garde art group[1] active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels (Br), Amsterdam (A).

Method[edit]

The European artists were different from their American counterparts (the Abstract expressionists) for they preferred the process over the product and introduced primitive, mythical, and folkloric elements along with a decorative input from their children [11] and graffiti.[12] One of the new approaches that united the CoBrA artists was their unrestrained use of strong colors, along with violent handwritings and figuration which can be either frightening or humorous. Their art was alive with subhuman figures in order to mirror the terror and weakness of our time unlike the dehumanized art of Abstraction.[13] This spontaneous method was a rejection of Renaissance art, specialization, and 'civilized art', they preferred 'uncivilized' forms of expression which created an interplay between the conscious and the unconscious instead of the Surrealist interest in the unconscious alone. The childlike in their method meant a pleasure in painting, in the materials, forms, and finally the picture itself; this aesthetic notion was called 'desire unbound'. The Dutch Artists in particular within CoBrA (Corneille, Appel, Constant) were interested in Children's art."We Wanted to start again like a child" Karel Appel insisted.[14] As part of the Western Left, they were built upon the fusion of Art and Life through experiment in order to unite form and expression.[9]

WestKunst (Cologne, 1981)

[11]

Paris-Paris (Paris, 1981)

[11]

Aftermath (London, 1981)

[11]

Two Survey shows (Hamburg, 1982; Paris and the French provinces also 1982)

[11]

The Spirit of Cobra (Fort Lauderdale, 2013)

CoBrA (Mannheim, 2023)

praises CoBrA as being a "...wonderfully messy, cacophonous, and multi-tentacled," entity.[23]

Alison M. Gingeras

(1904–2002), of South Africa, claimed to be one of the only black artists of CoBrA. In his own words, Mancoba, a clear supporter of the CoBrA movement, criticizes the views of his fellow artists regarding himself: "The embarrassment that my presence caused to the point of making me, in their eyes, some sort of 'Invisible Man' or merely the consort of a European woman artist—was understandable, as before me there had never been to my knowledge any black man taking part in the visual arts 'avant garde' of the Western World."[23]

Ernest Mancoba

Legacy[edit]

There is a Cobra Museum in Amstelveen, Netherlands, displaying works by Karel Appel and other international avant-garde artists.[24]


The NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is known for its large assemblage of works of CoBrA art. The museum displays works by Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, and Asger Jorn, the movement's leading exponents.[25]


Auctioneers Bruun Rasmussen held an auction of CoBrA artists on April 3, 2006 in Copenhagen. It set records for the highest price for an Asger Jorn painting (6.4 million DKK for Tristesse Blanche) and for the highest amount raised in a single auction in Denmark (30 million DKK in total).

School of Paris

Didrichsenmuseum.fi

Museum Jorn, Silkeborg