exhibitions

Open the Cages of Art
Poem Drawings by Lucebert

08.05 - 09.09 2012

For the first time, this exhibition takes a more concentrated look at the poem drawings of Lucebert (1924-1994), the poet and artist who was a member of the Cobra movement and the Vijftigers, the pioneering group of experimental poets. In his liberating and timeless poem drawings, Lucebert set free his innovating language of word and image. The exhibition also focuses attention on the printed materials that Lucebert designed for others, including book covers and illustrations for the writers and poets who were his friends, including Remco Campert and Bert Schierbeek. The exhibition shines new light on the inspiring double talents of Lucebert.

Cobra - Changing Times

10.05 2012 - 09.09 2012

This multifaceted summer presentation places the tumultuous history of the evolution and the reception of the Cobra movement in the context of the 1940s and 1950s. With the support of film images and documentary materials, works from the Cobra Museum collection reveal a range of fascinating stories about Cobra. Several contemporary artists have been invited to use the expressions of the Cobra artists as a starting point for investigations of their own.

Cobra Cities

02.06 - 07.10 2012

Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, New York: Cobra is inextricably associated with major city centres. This is where the artists lived, met one another in cafés and worked in spaces they shared. They were part of the artistic avant-garde that brought colour to these cities in the 1940s and 1950s. Cobra Cities presents works from the collection, revealing the art scene of which the Cobra artists were a part.

Svavar Gudnason
The Icelandic Cobra Artist (Cobra from Iceland)

20.10 2012 - 06.01 2013

In the autumn of 2012, the first retrospective exhibition in the Netherlands will take place of the work of the leading Icelandic avant-garde artist, Svavar Gudnason (1909-1988). Gudnason studied in Paris in the 1930s, with Fernand Léger and others. He became acquainted with Cobra through his contacts with the Danish avant-garde scene and was the first Icelandic artist to develop an abstract expressionist style. This international retrospective exhibition includes works from Gudnason’s entire artistic development. It has been made possible in collaboration with the National Museum of Iceland and the Carl-Henning Pedersen og Else Alfelts Museum in Herning and the Skovhuset Museum, both in Denmark.

Bram Bogart
Master of the Material

The Cobra Museum is pleased to present a long-awaited tribute to the Dutch-Belgian artist, Bram Bogart (b. 1921). At age 90, Bogart is an éminence grise of 20th century post-war painting. His artistic development took place in the turbulent transition from figurative to abstract art. At the beginning of the 1950s, Bogart was working in an attic studio in the famous warehouse on rue Santeuil in Paris, where Karel Appel and Corneille were also staying. In Paris, he developed a completely idiosyncratic abstract painting, based on an expressive treatment of paint. Bram Bogart’s monumental material paintings earned him worldwide fame.
With the aid of spaces arranged by theme, the exhibition presents highlights from this rich body of work. It brings attention to the shift from figuration to abstraction, to the characteristic painting style that Bogart built up with powerful strokes of paint, his preference for geometric compositions and his use of primary colours. The exhibition also includes work by artists with whom Bram Bogart felt strong kinship, including William Turner, Constant Permeke, Mondrian, Lucio Fontano, Willem de Kooning and Bart van der Leck.