Introduction

After his recovery from near fatal illness in 1952, ‘Jorn decided that the elements of “risk and chance” would govern his life in future.’ ¹ Nevertheless, like many another gambler, he went in search of a structure to support his decisions; hence the extraordinary reading programme of the 1950s. Meanwhile his mental and emotional life was becoming increasingly complicated and eventually this began to affect his artistic production. As Atkins remarks, Jorn’s paintings of 1959–62 have a defensive quality. ² Their defensiveness consists in the avoidance of the raw and immediate emotional charge normally so characteristic of Jorn’s work for, on the one hand, the ‘Modifications’ and ‘Disfigurations’ of kitsch paintings bought in Parisian flea markets are a considered sardonic approach (Plates 6, 7, 14) whilst, on the other, the drip and splash Luxury Paintings aim for sensuous beauty rather than spontaneous expression (Plates 11, 12, 13). At the time of his decision to take the gambler’s path, he had written of an opponent relationship between drama and poetry, making no secret of his preference for the former (3:7). Now he had come to rest at the opposite pole. He could no longer leave things so much to chance: a change of position was necessary, not just for his art but for his mental safety.