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Those who try to combat the production of shoddy pictures are enemies of the best art today. Those woodland lakes in a thousand sitting-rooms with gold-tinted wallpaper belong to the profoundest inspirations of art. It always feels tragic to see people labouring to saw off the branch they are sitting on.

— Asger Jorn Intimate Banalities (1941)

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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.