Interview with Klaus Jorn (1989)

This interview was conducted by Sam Jedig on 17 January 1989 and has been lightly edited for clarity. It documents a formative moment in Klaus Jorn’s artistic development, focusing on materials, form, and the emergence of his characteristic visual language.

Edited by Sam Jedig

Sam Jedig:

When I first saw your work in 1983, you were working on an oil painting you had kept for many years. Can you talk about that period, and about where it all began?

Klaus Jorn:

It began in my childhood. At my mother’s place I saw oil paintings, and when I visited my cousin in Silkeborg, we would sit and look at Asger Jorn’s pictures. Not analytically, but sensing the atmosphere inside them. They were mysterious. I couldn’t draw like Jorn, but I could feel his force. My cousin made a drawing, about 10×15 cm, and I bought it for 20 kroner. It followed me for years.
When I was 22–23 years old, I created a large canvas that I worked on and later stored away. Fifteen years later I found it again, and I could see that it was the first picture where I had found my own path. Asger Jorn and Richard Mortensen were important to me then — as points of orientation.

Sam:

You also worked early in wood?

Klaus Jorn:

Yes. Wood was a natural material for me. I had worked with wood since school workshops and took my journeyman’s certificate in it. Wood is warm, calm. I didn’t make many sculptures, but the few I did felt right. It was as though the material carried its own story. The same is true for stone, cement, and mortar. They hold a historical weight. When you work with them, you feel time in your hands.

Sam:

And the drawings on copper plates?

Klaus Jorn:

Yes, in 1985. I didn’t print them — I drew directly on the plates and let the copper itself be the finished work. I didn’t need the printing process, only the encounter with the material. I’ve always had respect for the material’s own will.

Sam:

Your paper works — they are central to your later production.

Klaus Jorn:

Paper is a universe. When I work on paper, time opens. I don’t think about time — it simply falls away. The paper begins to vibrate, and then the form arrives. It is as if the paper carries its own electricity. I become quiet, and then it happens.

Form, figures, and movement

Sam:

You often work with repeated forms — ovals, triangles, circles. What are they?

Klaus Jorn:

It began with something Asger Jorn told me: if you draw an apple, remember the stem. The opening. The exit. That idea has stayed with me: every form must be able to breathe. He also spoke about Edvard Munch and the woman’s hair flowing like a line through the picture. I understood him: form is alive.

I stand somewhere between spontaneity and intention. I use curls and ornaments like Jorn, but I choose form the way Mortensen did. The curls must have a function. Form must be able to carry.

Sam:

Is that why the triangle is central for you?

Klaus Jorn:

Yes. It came to me spontaneously when I was with a girl. But I have never worked with sexual symbols — on the contrary, I reject vulgarity. For me, the triangle is a structure, not a symbol. An energy.

Sam:

And your “corpus form” — the small body with eyes?

Klaus Jorn:

That is the human being. Not as a realistic figure, but as a basic form. The eyes are the anchor. Everything begins with that form. Le Corbusier used the open hand as a symbol of humanity. I think about that often. I am trained as a craftsman like him, and so hands make sense to me. The hand is the first tool.

Sam:

You often erase and redraw.

Klaus Jorn:

Yes. I erase without hesitation. There is nothing sacred in that. It may take three attempts to find the form that holds. A good form must carry the entire figure.

Surface, rhythm, and ornament

Sam:

Your figures float in a space without perspective. The image is flat, yet alive.

Klaus Jorn:

Paper is two-dimensional, and it must be allowed to remain that way. I won’t force it into depth. The movement must be on the surface. That is rhythm — like music. Ornament is important: small shifts, repetitions. After photography, naturalism became less interesting. The surface became more essential.

Sam:

There is something magical and childlike in your figures.

Klaus Jorn:

The child sees the world freely. That freedom is what Jorn, Bille, and Jacobsen found in children’s drawings and African masks. As children we laughed at opera because we didn’t understand it, but Armstrong’s “Dark Eyes” spoke directly to us. The childlike is not naïve. It is unlimited.

Music, childhood, and rhythm

Sam:

You often speak of rhythm. Where does it come from?

Klaus Jorn:

From childhood. We traced Donald Duck figures on wood. That taught me movement. Later I listened to jazz and formed small bands when I was about 12. We even played at the school dance. Music and drawing are the same to me: rhythm, movement, shifts. The figures in my pictures slide like melodic lines.

The total human being

Sam:

You talk about “the total human being”.

Klaus Jorn:

Yes. A person must not become a narrow specialist. If one only does one thing, something is lost. The early human built houses, cooked food, played music, loved, danced. That wholeness is important. Differences create better results than sameness. When people from different backgrounds meet, something strong occurs.

Meditation, zero point, and the beginning of creation

Sam:

You work from a kind of zero point. Is it meditation?

Klaus Jorn:

Yes. I sit quietly, and then it begins. If I think too much, it breaks. When I become quiet, the paper starts to vibrate. There is electricity between the paper and the hand. That is the beginning.
The forms create themselves through me. I am only a hand in the work. Of course I am Danish, Jutlandic — I know that. But in the work, it disappears.

Philosophy: Eros, Socrates, Kierkegaard

Sam:

You often refer to philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Kierkegaard. What do they mean to you?

Klaus Jorn:

Socrates says that beauty grows in a person when you see the same beauty in many things. I believe that. He also speaks about conversation — the dialogue between two people in a private space. Something special happens there. Kierkegaard describes anxiety as something that arises when you hide something. That is true. A small secret can create unrest and aggression. Myths, runes, and symbols interest me too, but not as mysticism. Runes got their form because they had to be carved into granite. The material determines the form.

Architecture, craft, and the authority of the material

Sam:

How has your education as carpenter and building technician shaped your art?

Klaus Jorn:

Craft taught me precision. A house stands because something is chosen correctly and the unnecessary is removed. It is the same with drawing. The material knows something I don’t. If I listen to it, things go well. If I push it, they don’t.
Sam: And architecture?

Klaus Jorn:

It gave me an understanding of the bearing structure. Le Corbusier was important — his open hand, his way of thinking the human being into form. He was also a craftsman. That matters.
I think in constructions even when I draw. Craft gave me respect for the material. Drawing gave me freedom.

Ending

Sam:

So everything connects for you — craft, philosophy, form, beauty?

Klaus Jorn:

Yes. When I am quiet, and the paper begins to vibrate, and the hand begins to draw — then the world becomes larger. Then beauty begins to reveal itself.