DETOURNEMENT

Asger Jorn's modifications

In the years around 1960, Asger Jorn bought at flea markets in Paris a number of paintings that society had written off as kitsch. He continued to paint on them, thus giving them a new artistic quality and meaning. Jorn called this series of works modifications and the method detournement – distortion in French. With his modifications, Jorn wanted to raise a critical discussion about the position of art in the society, the bourgeois view of art and the commercial art market.

The exhibition presents a large part of the museum’s collection of Jorn’s modifications – including Jorn’s first modification experiment on postcards, Raphael’s angels from around 1946, and the main work The Unsettling Duckling from 1959.