A line of disjuncture: the tear

Asger Jorn  1950 drawing on two pieces of paper

I recently came across this drawing by Asger Jorn the COBRA artist. Tearing a drawing in half and juxtaposing it with another one is a method of creating a new image learnt by artists from the early days of collage. Not only could you bring into your work signs of the outside world by pasting into your drawing or painting a page from a newspaper, a torn out advert or some wallpaper, but your own work once released into the world becomes yet another potential collage element, so you could also treat your discarded work in the same way. A line of disjuncture always occurs across the torn edges that butt together, but because the same hand is at work in both areas, a formal or stylistic link will make the two halves sit together as a totality. Jorn was always looking to surprise himself and wanted to keep his expressionist images raw, fresh and energised,  therefore collage was a natural way to find unexpected formal relationships. Jorn inherits the Surrealist tradition of chance encounters. Although working as an Expressionist painter, his search for new imagery is heavily influenced by Surrealist procedures. This type of collaging influenced by the many 'Exquisite Corpse' drawings done throughout the Surrealist years. 

Chapman Brothers

Every process can be highjacked to support other agendas, and the Chapman Brothers turned to 'Exquisite Corpse' structures when they wanted to make a play on what invention and 'expression' meant for a contemporary Post-Modern artist. However for me, the line of disjunction that sits between each section of this etched image, reads more as a formal device to support their idea than a line of true discovery. This is what I would suggest John Berger would term a mannerism. (see previous post on Berger)  

Original Surrealist Exquisite Corpse drawing

In the original Surrealist Exquisite Corpse drawing above, I like the way that Miro's drawing is so clearly his, the awkward 'naffness' of this image chimes with the desire to discover something new and is an interesting comparison with the Chapman Brothers more knowing composition. 

The disjuncture created by pushing one image against another hasn't always been used as a device to create surprise or more 'Surreal' imagery. The artist and educator Hans Hoffman would often tear his students work in half in order to reassemble the image to create a better spatial resolution in response to the 'alive' nature of perception. The Cubist disjunction that comes from seeing something from multiple viewpoints being central to this, rather than the poetry of the coming together of sewing machines, umbrellas and dissecting boards. 

Olga Kitt

The drawing above was done in one of Hoffman's life drawing classes, he  would often tear a student's drawing in half, have them reassemble the image and then reconcile the two halves by re-drawing. Lee Krasner the famous abstract expressionist painter and former wife of Jackson Pollock used to go to Hoffman's classes and hated it when he did this to her drawings. 

What interests me here is that usually Surrealism, Expressionism and Cubism are held up as very different disciplines, however all three have used what I have called a 'line of disjuncture' to generate imagery and to open out expectations as to what constitutes coherent formal invention.  Disjuncture is not passive, and all of these artists have at one point or another had to struggle with what it is to create art about the experience of life. Life is of course rarely predictable and we will only survive if we are able to adapt and work with what life throws our way. The reconciliation of difference is also something that we all need to be able to do if we are to accept and work with other people and cultures, something that I would say is vital to our future survival. 

See also:

Illusion
Surrealism 

The split