Les Bersaerk sont parmis nous 1962

Asger Jorn made "Les Bersaerk sont parmis nous," with paint, and it’s a wild ride of color and gesture. There’s a real sense of urgency here, the colors are applied in short, choppy strokes, like he’s wrestling with the paint. Look at the way he’s built up the face, it’s almost like a mask, layers of color slapped on top of each other. It's thick in some places, thin in others. The overall effect is one of controlled chaos. Jorn doesn't smooth things over or try to hide his process; instead, he seems to embrace the messy, unpredictable nature of artmaking. There’s a real physicality to this piece, you can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the canvas. The whole thing reminds me a bit of some of the later work by Francis Picabia, that same willingness to throw everything at the canvas and see what sticks.