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This calls for an explanation and it may be this, that no painting, however good it seems to us is anything in itself, except chemicals smeared on a flat surface. The value in the work of art is in the spectator, you see, and a painting has no bigger value than the mental and intellectual forces it arouses in the spectator.

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More quotes by Asger Jorn

This is what aesthetics, development and progress depend upon: that we go out on thin ice.

On the task of modern artists (1959)

To make the material speak to man in the name of man, this is the aim and reality of art.

Statement of 1971; as quoted in Asger Jorn (2002)

We are sparks that must glow as brightly as possible.

On being an pictorial artist (1950)

Beautiful, ugly, impressive, disgusting, meaningless, grim, contradictory etc.. .It makes no difference, as long as it is life, vigorously pouring forth.

If you add something to a painting, never let it be for aesthetic reasons. Only let it be for reasons of expression.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Asger Jorn (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.