Cobra

cobra art
Website dedicated to the Cobra artmovement.

Cobra Museum Amsterdam
It was in the Paris café Notre Dame that Asger Jorn (from Copenhagen), Joseph Noiret and Christian Dotremont (from Brussels) and Constant, Corneille and Karel Appel (from Amsterdam) signed the manifesto 'La Cause était entendue’ (The Case was Heard). This manifesto, drawn up by Dotremont, was a response to a statement by the French Surrealists entitled 'La Cause est entendue' (The Case is Heard). In it Dotremont makes it clear they are no longer in agreement with the French artists. The CoBrA painters wanted to break new ground, preferring to work spontaneously and with the emphasis more on fantastic imagery. In 1951 the CoBrA movement was officially disbanded, yet during its short existence CoBrA rejuvenated Dutch modern art...

CoBrA: Before, During, and After
The movement has its roots in Surrealism and especially German Expressionism, but incorporates many of the attitudes and techniques of American abstract expressionism. The artists were participants in the shifts in prevailing philosophical currents of the time, from existentialism to that aspect of critical theory that took shape in Paris in the 1960s. Coalescing around the Situationiste Internationale and Guy Debord, their manifestoes and publications form the basis upon which much post-modern work of the latter half of the century found its intellectual grounding...