Asger Jorn – L'Avantgarde se rend pas, 1962

5 October 2017 · Paris

Asger Jorn's L'Avantgarde se rend pas (1962) hangs against a white gallery wall, its wood frame containing a found Victorian portrait overworked in chalky white scrawl. The original child subject survives beneath Jorn's graffiti-like additions — a deliberate collision between bourgeois sentiment and Situationist provocation. The museum label beside it reads as straight as the painting is not. Détournement made permanent, framed and lit.