The vast array of images in the show The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and its Legacy on view at Blum & Poe L.A., after the first leg of the show opened in their New York space, remind me of post-war trauma, as seen in post-WWI images of men coming back from fighting and watching their friends die and seeing hope not just fade, but completely disappear. The Getty recently hosted a similarly traumatic show called World War I: War of Images, Images of War. After this first massive world war that used technology in a way never before seen, killing 20 million and wounding 21 million, it’s hard to fathom that such horrificness could ever happen again. But then World War II came along, and the images got worse, bloodier, the fatalities increased, and so perhaps it makes sense that the art created during this post-war period got even more bizarre and hopeless.
This is where the bicoastal show The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up: Cobra and Its Legacy seems to begin. With the first half of the show already opened in New York, this West Coast installation focuses on Asger Jorn, one of the Cobra founder s, a Danish man who lived from 1914-73. We see many of his contributions to the movement, including paintings he did on paintings he bought from flea markets, abstract paintings, and other “experiments” with ceramics and textiles.
Read more at http://www.craveonline.com/art/928853-review-avant-garde-wont-give-cobra-legacy-blum-poe#mm71x8b4BFbpilee.99
