Asger Oluf Jorn Meets Artist Anders Herwald Ruhwald

Asger Oluf Jorn (1914-1973) was an avant-garde renaissance-man working across many disciplines. During his lifetime he was a painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, author and a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. Inspired by Asger Jorn’s writings and theories on architecture and design, artist Anders Herwald Ruhwald created 15 ceramic sculptures that recontextualize central ideas of functionalism, capitalism and décollage as an artistic strategy for the exhibition Sculptures from Casa Jorn at the experimental ceramic hub Officine Saffi’s Jorn House Museum.

The bright sculptures present an abstract interpretation of Jorn’s ideas, materializing them in clay and ready-made assemblages. The Adaptable Body I and II allow a kind of 3d collage through the clamp that is attached the ceramic artwork. This allows the piece to be easily re-positioned, clamping onto  different items within a space. It, therefore, becomes a continually changing element within a set interior, reframing its meaning with each shift in position.

Anders Herwald Ruhwald also explores his Danish roots in exploring notions of Nordic identity. His sculpture This Constructed World pairs the iconic Poul Henningsen PH lamp with a mass of clay, juxtaposing the Nordic Design vernacular with avant-garde art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog titled ‘The Body, The Mind, This Constructed World’. It include essays by curator Glenn Adamson, Ruth Baumeister, a specialist in European Post-War Avant-Gardes in Architecture and Art and Luca Bochicchio, the Director of Casa Museo Jorn.

‘Sculptures from Casa Jorn’ will be on display until January 25