Art Painting

An Artist Who Attacked an Asger Jorn Painting in a Denmark Museum Apologizes for Accidentally Using Such a Strong Glue

The Museum Jorn in Silkeborg, Denmark, is in the procedure of restoring The Disquieting Duckling (1959), a portray by artist Asger Jorn that was vandalized late previous month. The perpetrator, Danish artist Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard, glued a photograph of herself on to the painting and signed her title in black everlasting marker. 

Ibi-Pippi, who was arrested soon afterward, took to Fb on the identical day to clarify that the additions were intended as a remark on Jorn’s techniques. To make the authentic operate, Jorn observed a pastoral landscape painting at a flea market and painted about it a huge, garishly colored duck. This method, regular of his perform, is recognised as “détournement.” Ibi-Pippi spelled out in her post that the additions were supposed as a “double modification” of Jorn’s initial “modification” 

Asger Jorn's <i>The Disquieting Duckling</i> (1959) after it was vandalised by Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard on April 29. Ibi-Pippi signed her name in black permanent marker. Courtesy of Museum Jorn.

Asger Jorn’s The Disquieting Duckling (1959) soon after it was vandalized by Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard on April 29. Ibi-Pippi signed her name in black lasting marker. Courtesy of Museum Jorn.

The museum’s director, Jacob Thage, instructed Artnet Information that the restorers arrived speedily to the scene and ended up equipped to take out most of the glue, but are nonetheless deciding how to remove a part that experienced already dried.

“We are hoping for a total restoration but we do not know however,” Thage mentioned, adding that restorers have predicted the operate may well acquire months. The more mature paint on the canvas, from just before Jorn’s additions, is particularly fragile. 

Ibi-Pippi claims to have unintentionally used the wrong tube of glue, owning supposed to utilize a more gentle adhesive. She advised the Danish station Tv set 2 East Jutland, “I am sorry that the work was mutilated to the extent it was.”

Outlining her motivations to Tv 2 East Jutland, Ibi-Pippi, who utilizes her initial name and woman pronouns because stating that she identifies as “a lesbian female trapped in a man’s body,” reported that the act was meant to spark a dialogue about possession.

“Many believe that that it is Jorn who has possession but I totally disagree,” she mentioned. “Jorn had procured the function and hence had a lawful proper to the impression, but he had no artistic right to delete a different artist’s operate. No much more than I have to delete his work.”

Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard vandalised Asger Jorn's <i>The Disquieting Duck</i> at the Museum Jorn on April 29. Courtesy of Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard.

Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard vandalized Asger Jorn’s The Disquieting Duck (1959) at the Museum Jorn on April 29. Courtesy of Ibi-Pippi Orup Hedegaard.

It has been instructed that the act was supposed as a correct-wing provocation soon after it was dwell-streamed on the Facebook website page Patrioterne Går Dwell, which translates as “patriots go are living.” The movie displays that the appropriate-wing artist Uwe Max Jensen was current at the museum with Ibi-Pippi. Very last yr, Jensen induced significant controversy with a functionality in which he utilized blackface and appeared to mimic the demise of George Floyd at the Polish condition museum’s “Political Art” exhibition. 

Ibi-Pippi now faces prices of destroying museum home. She instructed the Tv station, “I stand by my actions, and I stand by the legal consequences.”

The painting was not hung at the rear of protective glass, but the “act of vandalism will power us to rethink the presentation,” Thage explained. “We have generally experimented with to present our collection as it was supposed by the artists, but the use of artwork for [attracting] attention or personal advertising will alter our solution.”

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