Human Animals: The Art of CobraSeptember 15 – November 20, 2016

Organized by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; Guest-curated by Karen Kurczynski, UMass Art History Assistant Professor

University Museum of Contemporary ArtFine Arts Center | UMass Amherst | www.umass.edu/umca

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Non Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDPermit No. 2Amherst, MA University Museum of Contemporary Art

Fine Arts Center / 151 Presidents DriveUniversity of Massachusetts AmherstAmherst, MA 01003-9331

www.umass.edu/umca

MUSEUM HOURS

Open Tuesday – Friday: 11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday: 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Open until 8 p.m. on first Thursdays

Closed Mondays, state holidays, and academic breaks

Admission is free

UMCA is a member of

museums10.org

Human Animals: The Art of CobraSeptember 15 – November 20, 2016cobr a events:*

September 14, 6 – 8 p.m. (Wed.) Opening Reception

September 16, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Fri.) Cobra Symposium: “The Legacy of Cobra”

October 6, 6 – 7 p.m. (Thu.) Tour of the exhibition, as part of the Amherst Art Walk

October [TBA] In Conversation: The Cobra Movement Out of Europe’s Ashes

October 21, 7:30p.m. (Fri.) CAGED: Cobra-inspired Poetry with CRVPT

November 3, 6 – 7 p.m. (Thu.) Tour of the exhibition, as part of the Amherst Art Walk

November 20 (Sun.) Last day to view Cobra exhibition

*For updates, please visit umass.edu/umca.

Human Animals: The Art of Cobra will be on view at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale in 2017. nsuartmuseum.org

Convened by Karen Kurczynski, Assistant Professor, Department of the

History of Art and Architecture, University

of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Curator

of Human Animals: The Art of Cobra.

The Legacy of Cobra is a one-day Symposium presenting new perspectives on the history and legacy of postwar European art, the Cobra movement (Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam, 1948–1951), and its impact on later art from the Situationist International (1957–1972) to today. The Symposium will coincide with the opening of the exhibition Human Animals: The Art of Cobra at the UMCA in September, 2016. The exhibition is curated by Karen Kurczynski, Assistant Professor of Art History and scholar of Danish Cobra artist Asger Jorn (1914–1973), in relation to a larger research project on the movement.

Local and international speakers and visiting artists will address 1) the historiography of the movement from the scholarly and curatorial perspective, in the context of broader questions of the representation of history and memory in postwar Europe; and 2) the legacy in art, politics, activism, and cultural critique of Cobra and the Situationist International in contemporary art and culture. Cobra was a collaborative movement that made major innovations in the area of collective artmaking, interdisciplinary experimentation, and art as an intervention into everyday life. A primary aim of investigating the movement, which has been understudied for decades in the U.S., is to connect it to the politico-artistic context of today and generate new or unconventional approaches to the pedagogy of art and art history.

Friday, September 16, 2016 | UMass Amherst Integrative Learning Center, Room S140 )

“The Legacy of Cobra” — A Symposium SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

9:00 a.m. | WELCOME | Karen Kurczynski

9:30–11:30 a.m. | PANEL 1

COBRA: HISTORY AND MEMORY IN POSTWAR EUROPE

• Ruth Baumeister, Professor of Architecture History, Architekskolen Aarhus, Denmark, author of L’architecture Sauvage: Asger Jorn’s Critique and Concept of Architecture (NAi/010, 2014)

• Karen Koehler, Professor of Architectural and Art History at Hampshire College

• Daniel Kojo Schrade, Associate Professor of Art at Hampshire College

• Mary Anne Rose, artist, widow of African American artist Herbert Gentry

• Karen Kurczynski, moderator/respondent

11:45 a.m.–1:30 p.m. | BREAK and EXHIBITION VIEWING AT UMCA

1:30–2:30 p.m. | PANEL 2

ALISON GINGERAS, INTERVIEW WITH JACQUELINE DE JONG

• Alison Gingeras, independent curator, New York City, curator of “The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy,” Blum + Poe Gallery, New York and Los Angeles, Fall 2015

• Jacqueline de Jong, Dutch artist featured in “Cobra: Contemporary Legacy,” former member of the Situationist International, founder of the critical-artistic journal The Situationist Times (1961–1967)

2:30–3:00 p.m. | COFFEE

3:00–5:00 p.m. | PANEL 3

LEGACIES OF COBRA AND THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL IN CONTEMPORARY ART

• McKenzie Wark, Professor of Culture and Media, New School for Social Research, New York, author of The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International (Verso, 2011) and The Spectacle of Disintegration (Verso, 2013)

• Gregory Williams, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History, Boston University, author of Permission to Laugh: Humor and Politics in Contemporary German Art (University of Chicago Press, 2012)

• Hilde de Bruijn, Curator at the Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, founder of the contemporary art blog and project series “Hilde Goes Asger” on the relationship of contemporary art to the work of Asger Jorn and Cobra

• Frazer Ward, Associate Professor of Art History, Smith College, moderator/respondent

5:00 p.m. | RESPONSE AND DISCUSSION

• Christoph Cox, Professor of Philosophy, Hampshire College, conference respondent

• Karen Kurczynski, moderator

Funding for the Symposium is generously provided by: UMass History of Art and Architecture Department | UMass German and Scandinavian Studies Department | UMass Studio Art Department | UMass College of Humanities and Fine Arts | UMass Graduate School | UMass Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement | Hampshire College Departments of Art and Art History | Smith College Art Department | Five Colleges, Inc. | Five College Architectural Studies | UMCA

Human Animals: The Art of CobraSeptember 15 – November 20, 2016

Organized by NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale;

Guest-curated by Karen Kurczynski, UMass Art History Assistant Professor

cobra, an interdisciplinary european avant-garde movement named after the cities Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam, formed in 1948 to create a new, spontaneous art based on popular imagery and personal expression. This exhibition examines the collective and multidisciplinary experiments of a group of artists and poets inspired by prewar avant-garde movements such as Surrealism, as well as children’s and outsider art. With its distinctive material vitality, their art recognized the new power of images after the tragedies of the Second World War. The artists involved, such as Dutch painters Constant (1920–2005) and Karel Appel (1921–2006) and Danish artist Asger Jorn (1914–1973), depict figures transforming into animal and human creatures, evoking symbolic and often political relationships between humans, humans and animals, or humans and the natural environment.

Curated by UMass Art History Assistant Professor Karen Kurczynski, a leading scholar who represents a new generation of art historians specializing in Cobra, the exhibition presents the history of Cobra through paintings, sculpture, prints, and primary documents. All Cobra art in the exhibition is from the Golda and Meyer Marks Collection at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, the largest assembly of Cobra artwork in a U.S. museum. In keeping with the exhibition’s assertion that Cobra has particular resonance with contemporary art practice, the design of Human Animals: The Art of Cobra reflects the innovative installations of the first Cobra exhibitions that were designed by Dutch avant-garde architect Aldo van Eyck, with a re-working of the “Poet’s Cage” featured in the landmark 1949 Cobra exhibition in Amsterdam. This brings an additional layer of trans-historical dialogue to the project.

a second exhibition, Cobra: Contemporary Legacy, which is on view simultaneously, organized by UMCA and curated by Kurczynski, sets the art of Cobra into direct dialogue with its contemporary legacy in the work of well-known artists active today, underscoring its continuing relevance and vitality. These artists include Herbert Gentry (American, 1919–2003), Jacqueline de Jong (Dutch, b. 1939), Albert Oehlen (German, b. 1954), Nicole Eisenman (American, b. 1965), Alex Heil (German, b. 1965), and Tal R (Danish, b. 1967).

an international symposium on Cobra and its legacy in contemporary art will take place on Friday, September 16, 2016, at UMass Amherst (9 a.m. – 5 p.m., Integrative Learning Center). Check our website (umass.edu/umca) for details. (See Symposium information above.)

The exhibition is supported through a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, as part of its Knight Arts Challenge with additional funding provided by Linda J. Marks and Stephen R. Marks.

This program is supported as part of the Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York.

We gratefully acknowledge Grumbacher; the Consulate General of Denmark – New York; the Danish Arts Foundation; German and Scandinavian Studies at UMass Amherst; the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation; Blum + Poe Gallery, Los Angeles; Cheim & Read Gallery, NY; and Galerie van de Loo, Munich; for their support of this exhibition.

Pierre Alechinsky (Belgian, b. 1927); Among Us (Parmi Nous), 1965; Acrylic on paper and canvas, 39 x 59 in.; NSU Art Museum Fort

Lauderdale; The Golda and Meyer Marks Collection

Christian Dotremont (Belgian, 1922–1979) and Jean-Michel Atlan (French, 1913–1960); The Transforms (Les transformes), 1972;

Artist’s book, Facsimile 513/600 (original 1950); 25,2 x 18 cm; NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; The Golda and Meyer Marks Collection

Jacqueline de Jong (b. 1939); Untitled from the “War” series, 2013; Pastel and charcoal on paper; 19.5 x 27.4 in.;

Courtesy of the artist

Karel Appel (Dutch, 1921–2006); Wafting in the Wind, 1975; Oil on canvas, 39 ½ x 39 ½ in.; NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale; The Golda and Meyer Marks Collection