ABSTRACT

When Jorn discovered in 1964, at the printers’ proof stage, that Thing and Polis was far too long, he took out whole sections. To these he added some other shorter texts he had been preparing during the previous two years and put together another book, Alpha and Omega, which he also took as far as the printers’ proof stage before deciding not to publish it. 2 There are two possible reasons for this. It had become obvious that the main purpose of the SISV project, the 32-volume series on Scandinavian art, was not going to materialize, and thus the parallel series of philosophical ‘reports’ had become redundant. The other is his state of mind at the time of writing. Some of the unpublished texts from this short period do seem to indicate an unusual exasperation and intemperance. 3 It was therefore probably the artist’s self-censorship that was responsible for the suppression of Alpha and Omega, which is the least attractive of all his books, often transmitting a tone of impatience and, at times, barely suppressed rage, particularly in the parts, mainly about the different evolutionary developments of men and women, transferred from Thing and Polis. 4 The decision by Silkeborg Art Museum to publish this work posthumously was, however, wholly consistent with Jorn’s position on such things. He criticized Kafka for burdening his friend Max Brod with the request to destroy all his output after his death. Kafka should have destroyed them himself if this really was his wish, but furthermore, as an artist about his own work, Jorn felt that ‘if others find something good there, even though I myself find it footling and empty, then how do I have the right to say, “No, it must be destroyed”?’ 5