A collection of masterpieces from one of Europe’s most powerful modern art movements has come to the UAE for the first time and is now on display at Sharjah Art Museum.
The “Cobra: 1000 Days of Free Art” exhibition, which began on September 9, features more than 60 artworks from the famous post-war Cobra movement and is a must-see for art lovers. The show and the way it is organised, with curatorial teams from Sharjah and The Netherlands coming together, enhances the Emirate’s reputation as a contemporary art hub.
“The Cobra” show in Sharjah harks back to a time when artists wanted to liberate the creativity that is hidden in every human being. The exhibition focuses “on the human and artistic commonalities that underlie the concerns of key figures from the Cobra movement and those of artists and the public in the Emirates”, according to Manal Ataya, Director General of Sharjah Museums Department.
Ataya hopes the show “will not only engender new cross-cultural dialogue among established artists but might also encourage members of the general public to try their hand at expressing themselves through art”.
“The Sharjah Art Museum is the ideal partner for Cobra Global. The building is placed in an environment that does justice to the art of Cobra. The galleries embrace our works as if they have been here for decades,” remarks Els Ottenhof, executive director, Cobra Museum of Modern Art.
Cobra artists were inspired by a multifaceted “primitivism”, comprised of myths, children’s drawings, folk art, prehistoric artefacts, oriental calligraphy and tribal art. Their art was direct and spontaneous. They worked without a preconceived plan, using their imagination, bright colours and new materials. Experimentation was crucial. Some of the recurring themes were animals, fantastic creatures, landscapes and mythical tales.
The movement began as a protest against surrealism which was entrenched in Europe for decades. The Cobra members complemented each other and took inspiration from each other’s works. Their emphasis was on the material, and they had the vigour and the desire to organise a “collective expression”.
The works are from the collection of the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in the Netherlands and include paintings, photographs, ceramics, textiles, jazz music and documentary materials from the period between 1947 and the early 1960s.
Established in Paris in 1948 by a group of avant-garde artists and poets, the revolutionary Cobra movement set out to change the face of art through new forms of experimental and spontaneous expression.
The exhibition tells the story of Cobra through a chronological timeline, introducing the visitor to the social and historical developments of the period 1930-1960 in Europe. Historical images and documentaries set the scene of a continent ravaged by war, while spoken word portraits by Cobra artists reflect on the birth and significance of the movement.
A selection of masterpieces showing fantasy animals, mythical creatures and vital compositions captures the experimental nature, freedom of expression and non-western influences that partly characterised the art.
“It’s a great honour for us to host the Cobra exhibition for the first time in the UAE,” says Alya Al Mulla, curator of Sharjah Art Museum.
“Cobra was such a significant moment in European art history, and the diverse work on display here tells an exciting story of a movement which, in a period lasting little more than 1,000 days, proved to be a true revolution in modern art.
“The movement was about challenging convention and breaking down barriers, and visitors will really feel the spirit of a revolutionary art form that still resonates strongly today.”
Three capital cities
CoBrA is an acronym for the three capital cities where the founding artists lived and worked: Copenhagen (Denmark), Brussels (Belgium) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands). They strove to create a new, free and expressive art, and to liberate the artistic creativity that is hidden in every human being.
The movement lasted until 1951 and brought together visual artists, poets, writers and thinkers whose richly imaginative and often childlike styles earned Cobra a place in the records of 20th Century art history.
“Cobra was based on international collaboration and cultural exchange. In the spirit of this art movement, the Cobra Museum of Modern Art travels the globe with ‘Cobra Global’, an eye-opening exhibition,” says Katja Weitering, artistic director at Cobra Museum of Modern Art.
“Sharjah offers a natural context for this travelling exhibition. The emirate pairs a rich cultural history with an exciting platform for the exchange of perspectives on modern and contemporary art.
“The renowned Sharjah Art Museum, situated in Sharjah’s cultural and historical heart, is the perfect venue to present the colourful and experimental art of Cobra.
“The diverse works on display here bring to life the story of this hugely significant modern art movement,” says Ataya.
“As well as supporting the local and regional art scene, we pride ourselves on our international collaborations, which enable us to bring some of the most influential art from around the world to the UAE.
“Through partnerships with prestigious organisations such as the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in the Netherlands we are able to enhance Sharjah’s growing reputation as a centre of art and culture in the Middle East.”
Protest against sterile art
As Weitering notes, “Young avant-garde artists in Europe initiated Cobra, an innovative art movement rooted in experimentation and collaboration between artists and poets. Although from different countries, Cobra artists were united in their struggle to find immediate and spontaneous forms of expression that would transcend cultural and geographical borders.
“In a very short space of time — Cobra officially existed for three years, from 1948 until 1951 — the group’s members created a synergy that resulted in a direct, childlike visual imagery and shared a range of theoretical ideas that would be of profound importance to the development of art in Europe thereafter.”
The “1000 Days of Free Art” in the title of the show, refers to the period from 1948 to 1951 when these artists, writers and poets created and exhibited as a group, only to part ways. There were also great contradictions, because the principles under which they grouped together were rather vague, although it was a protest against sterile art.
International activities under the Cobra banner began to decline in 1950. Cobra officially dissolved after its last official exhibition in 1951 in Belgium.
Working from different countries and cities, each artist was preoccupied in developing his own oeuvre, but like the Beatles, the days when they were together marked a glorious period, which is being revisited by art historians, students and lovers of art. Looking back, Karel Appel, a key figure in the movement, describes it as “a beautiful and passionate” period. But then they “met together only a few times,” he says.
Many of the individual artists forged brilliant careers in their own countries. As Appel explains quite simply in 1957: “My tube [of paint] is a rocket that traces its own space.”
Their works now fetch massive prices at auctions and are prized by collectors as well as art museums.
“The spirit of Cobra — the collective pursuit of spontaneous creativity — has lost none of its appeal or relevance. This is why it is essential to keep the legacy of these experimental artists alive for future generations. That heritage includes not only Cobra works of art, but also the less tangible and universal body of thought, which gives high priority to ideas about freedom, collective solidarity, and cultural diversity,” adds Weitering.
‘Cobra: I000 Days of Free Art’ runs at the Sharjah Art Museum until November 20.
Fab Four pioneers from the Netherlands
The exhibition in Sharjah focuses mainly on four of the major artists and themes from the movement.
“The diverse works of these four pioneering artists provide an engaging and highly informative insight into a vital chapter in the development of modern art,” says Ataya.
The distinctive, unrestrained style of “the material master” Karel Appel is captured perfectly in his paintings. One of the exhibition’s highlights is Appel’s classic “Femmes, Enfants, Animaux” (Women, Children, Animals), a huge oil on jute painting he created in 1951. He developed his distinct personal signature, largely inspired by the imaginary worlds of children. Typical work during the Cobra years were his mythical animal and child beings in vibrant colours, painted in a French atmosphere with a simple colourful forms and firm outlines. Appel also made sculptures throughout his life — created figurative reliefs in scrap wood that resemble three-dimensional paintings. His creative zeal, which had its roots in spontaneous and experimental artistic expression, was for him a necessity of life. No wonder, he went on to become one of the Netherlands’s best known Modern artist.
The oral arts tradition manifests itself in the work of the Dutch poet and painter Lucebert. After the Second World War, he became a self-taught artist. Although only indirectly involved and for a short time, Cobra had a profound impact on his work, influencing him in his conviction to choose experimental art and freedom. The myths he created in his experimental paintings and poems were based on the world of people and liberally charged with literary references. The Cobra influence can be seen in his works from 1949 on in his drawings and gouaches.
In a deliberately clumsy execution of line, he drew on to an underground structure of dots, dashes, crosses and circles the entire mythical world of hybrid creatures, powerfully outlined with the simplicity of children’s drawing. Many of his works have human figures as subjects, with the head often expressed as a caricature.
Universal concern for creating a better world is a major theme throughout the architectural visions of Constant Nieuwenhuys, as much a social reformer as he was an artist. The consistent thread throughout his work remained his social engagement and drive for innovation. His visual work was deeply permeated with the Cobra ideal of freedom through creativity. Spontaneity in the process of making a painting was a crucial element.
Like Appel, he was inspired by children’s drawings. Birds symbolise the freedom gained after the war. Later, he studied architecture, and from 1953 on, created a planned urban and social utopia called New Babylon. Looking back in mid-1990s on his quest for a new world, he says after the initial enthusiasm, the revolution did not work out. “All new currents take a very long time to materialise.”
A fascination with the mysteries of nature and the universe resonates within the paintings of Eugene Brands, a self-taught painter. He was quite a solitary artist, and compared to the others he was less critical of society and more meditative by nature, who drew inspiration from the cosmos, stars and planets as well as magic. There is always a touch of the cosmos in his paintings. His credo was “panta rhei”, the everything flows of the ancient Greeks. Contrasted to the thickly applied paintings by Appel, Brands constructed his works in thin layers of paint. He believed that form always had to remain secondary to colour.
Cobra Museum of Modern Art
The museum was opened in 1995 to secure the lasting legacy of an art movement that pursued values such as creative renewal and experimentation, passion and vitality, spontaneity and engagement. The Cobra Museum has the objective to raise awareness and appreciation for innovative movements in Dutch and European art, among which CoBrA is the most important. The museum exists to honour the “spirit” of CoBrA by giving recognition to contemporary artists who persist in expressing an experimental and critically engaged vision.
The Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen has a unique collection built from the estates of the members of the international movement. The collection is permanently on display in changing exhibitions. The museum ensures that the intellectual heritage of the movement’s artists is kept alive. Over a period of almost two decades, the museum has developed into a centre of expertise on collections. Besides presentations of the CoBrA legacy, the museum also organises prominent exhibitions of contemporary art.
N.P. Krishna Kumar is a freelance journalist based in Dubai.
