Constant Nieuwenhuys - CoBrA

CoBrA

In 1946 Constant travels to Paris for the first time where he meets the young Danish painter Asger Jorn. The friendship between Jorn and Constant later forms the basis for CoBrA. July 1948 he founds the Reflex Experimentele Groep in Holland (nl) with Corneille, Karel Appel and his brother Jan Nieuwenhuys. The first edition of the magazine Reflex is published with a manifest written by Constant. For Constant art had to be experimental. He had deducted this from the French word 'expérience', art springs from experience of the artist and is continuously changing. The manifest would become one of the most important texts on art in the Netherlands after WWII. In this manifest he states that firstly the process of creation is more important to the experimental artist than the work itself. It is a means to reach spiritual and mental enrichment. Secondly work of experimental artists is a mirror image of changes in general perception of beauty.

Constant, Corneille and Appel, three totally different characters and artists, are united in their quest for innovation. They exhibit their work together and are often seen together in the European artscene. This somewhat to the annoyance of other experimental artists in the Netherlands. Especially the wanderlust of the three is notorious.

Later in the year 1948 on the terrace of café Notre Dame in Paris the Experimentele Groep in Holland links up with Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret from Belgium and Asger Jorn from Denmark to form CoBrA. The name CoBrA is made up by Dotremont and is formed by the first letters of their hometowns: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. The members oppose to aesthetics in painting and to bourgeois art in general. Constant had already outlined their ideas in his manifest in the Reflex magazine that holds his famous quote: "A painting is not a structure of colours and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a man, or all of these together"

Constant is productive during the CoBrA period. White Bird (1948), Ladder (1949) and Scorched Earth I (1951) are some of his noted works from this period. They publish a CoBrA bulletin and more and more artist from several different disciplines join the ranks. In 1948 Constant together with poet Gerrit Kouwenaar (nl) publishes a poetry album Goede Morgen Haan. And in a very short period of time there are two large CoBrA exhibitions, one in Amsterdam in 1949 and one in Liege in 1951.

The director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (Municipal Museum Amsterdam), Willem Sandberg, is very supportive of young artist and fully supports he CoBrA group by giving them seven large rooms to exhibit their work in. However, most of the CoBrA works are fairly small due to lack of money. Sandberg, gives them an advance to create some larger works and in the week before the exhibition Constant, Corneille, Appel and Eugène Brands create several large pieces of art that have become iconic for the movement. The architect Aldo van Eyck is commissioned to shape the exhibition. The exhibition is unconventional to say the least. The works of art as well as the way they are presented give rise to harsh critique from press and public. A critic from Het Vrije Volk (Free People) writes 'Geklad, geklets en geklodder in het Stedelijk Museum' (Smirch, twaddle and mess in the Urban Museum of Amsterdam). An often heard remark from the public is that their kids could probably do the same, only better. The CoBrA artists are considered scribblers and con artists.

At the even larger exhibition in Liege in 1951 and with the publication of the tenth edition of the CoBrA bulletin the group dissolves itself. As Christian Dotremont, the international secretary, states in Museum News in 1962 the group would rather 'mourir en beauté' (die in beauty) than become a regular artist interest group. However short the existence of the group, CoBrA has forever changed the landscape of postwar European art.