Sharing Human Expression

The CoBrA Movement

Jan 07, 2025

As an avant-garde art movement from 1948 to 1951, CoBrA was grounded in a radical, collective vision for art rejecting traditional norms, embracing spontaneity and seeking to reconnect art with primal creativity and emotion. It was the first post-war collaboration, founded by a group of European artists who sought to break away from traditional artistic styles and embrace spontaneous, experimental and collective creativity. The name "CoBrA" is derived from the first letters of the cities where the founding artists were based: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels (Br), and Amsterdam (A). For the purpose of this post, we will use COBRA.

Mission of COBRA

“In this period of change, the role of the creative artist can only be that of the revolutionary: it is his duty to destroy the last remnants of an empty, irksome aesthetic, arousing the creative instincts still slumbering unconscious in the human mind.” —Constant Nieuwenhuys

Reject traditional academic art and bourgeois aesthetics: Principle Over Establishment meant opposing post-war conservatism while seeking to break free from rigid, structured styles. Arousing creative instincts became more important than academics.
Embrace spontaneity and experimentation: Creation Before Theory emphasizing childlike creativity, primal forms and instinctual expressions. Recognizing art as an action, rather than a product.
Rediscover universal and collective roots in art: Origin First inspired by folk art, children’s drawings, outsider art and non-Western art forms, awakening the child-mind instead of the politic.
Promote collaboration and collectivity: Group Over Idea predicated art as a social activity enriched by shared creation rather than solitary work. Artist as recognized individual is superseded by the whole.

Meeting: The Primal Wall Project

Location: Bregnerød, Denmark, 1949. A rustic farmhouse surrounded by open fields and forest.

The farmhouse is alive with the hum of creativity. The room is dimly lit by flickering oil lamps, casting moving shadows on the rough walls. The group is gathered around a long, uneven wooden table, the center of activity covered in scattered sketches, paint swatches, bottles of wine and fragments of poetry. With his ink-stained fingers, Christian Dotremont has been jotting down ideas for the accompanying text. Asger Jorn has been passionately outlining a variety of visual frameworks, his hands gesturing wildly. Karel Appel and Constant Nieuwenhuys continue to argue playfully with color swatches, while as usual, Corneille suggests integrating animal motifs to symbolize vitality. It is a pivotal time for COBRA. Their voices are animated as they discuss their next collaborative public project.*

Asger Jorn (leaning forward, gesturing in the air with a brush in hand): We must take our art out of these walls and into the world! A mural—a massive work the public can’t ignore. It will be wild, untamed and alive, just like us. A universal story of rebirth after war, told through every medium we know.

Karel Appel (sips from her wine glass): I agree! But it cannot be clean or polite. It must scream with color! Reds, yellows, blues—clashing, fighting and dancing all at once. People should feel it in their gut, not only their eyes.

Christian Dotremont (scratching his beard, pen in hand): And the words! I will write directly on the wall, weaving poetry into the images. Short, sharp fragments leaving space for the viewer’s imagination. The words must be raw like the colors.

Corneille (looking up as he sketches absentmindedly): Yes, but don’t forget the animals. They are primal and universal. A bird, a serpent, a lion—symbols transcending language and culture. Let them tell the story, too.

Constant Nieuwenhuys (tapping his fingers on the table): The structure must guide the chaos. I can design the framework—a balance of shapes and lines to hold everything together. Without that, it risks becoming noise.

Eugène Brands (quietly, but with conviction): And the spiritual element! Don’t forget that! The mural must reach into the depths of the soul, touching something ancient and eternal. This isn’t just a mural; it’s a call to awaken.

Asger Jorn: But how do we fund this? Paints, scaffolding, space—it’s not as simple as throwing paint here, on the farmhouse wall.

Christian Dotremont (mischievously): Ah, Asger, you always worry about money. We’ll pitch it to the museums, the patrons. The Stedelijk always loves a good spectacle. Even Peggy Guggenheim might fund it if it’s bold enough!

Karel Appel: True, but we’ll need to show them something. A sketch, a plan. Corneille, you and I can draft something tonight, yes?

Corneille (nodding): Yes, and I’ll add the animal forms to give it depth and meaning. We’ll capture their attention, don’t worry.

Constant Nieuwenhuys: We must delegate roles. I will draft the structure, ensuring it can hold both chaos and harmony. Karel, you lead the color work. Asger, you create the dynamic elements—the movement. Christian, your poetry will weave through it all.

Asger Jorn (grinning): Fine, but only if Eugène adds his ethereal touch. He keeps us grounded in the spirit of it all.

Christian Dotremont (raises his glass as affirmation): To the Primal Wall! A project to roar with life and speak to the soul.

All (energetically raising glasses): To the Primal Wall!

As the meeting concludes, the jazz music is turned up to fill the farmhouse. Wild and improvised sounds of Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk match the energy of the group. Karel and Corneille move into one corner to sketch, their hands flying over paper. Asger starts preparing canvases, already visualizing the mural. Christian sits by the fire, pen in hand, scribbling lines of poetry. Constant and Eugène discuss the spiritual symbols to anchor the work. As the night deepens, the saxophone of Dizzy Gillespie weaves through the rooms, sharp and vibrant matching the spontaneous rhythm of brushes on canvas and scratching of pens, punctuated by the sporadic jovial clinking of glasses. COBRA’s playful spirit is alive and well, ready to leave its mark on the world.

If The Primal Wall Project Were Real

The Primal Wall Project as represented here is a fictional creation inspired by the COBRA movement's ethos and spirit. While COBRA did not specifically create a project under this name, it captures the essence of their collaborative efforts, how they worked together, their commitment to primal, expressive art and breaking conventional boundaries. This example of a project concept aligns with COBRA’s spirit because:

It emphasizes primal, collective creativity, a hallmark of their work.
It suggests a large-scale, immersive art form, which they often explored.
It reflects their desire to connect art with public spaces and universal human experience.

If these principles sound familiar, it’s because most Street Art and Urban Art programs are actually based upon COBRA principles. While The Primal Wall Project doesn't actually exist in history, we probably know or have worked on something like it. Every time we see communal projects on social media or in our own neighborhoods, now we know them for what they are: A tribute to COBRA’s ability to create change by inspiring collaborative, boundary-defying wild, untamed art with an enduring influence in our global societies and communities of today.

Legacy of CoBrA

What began as a very small group of kindred creative spirits grew as more artists and writers joined the group after its formation. As projects became funded and recognized by institutions, something became very clear: If they proceeded further, they would become the exact thing they had wished to destroy. They had resisted becoming part of the art world establishment, yet by the time they produced a magazine and gained more artists as a result of the pressures from financiers, they barely recognized their foundational elements. As a result, each started working on their own projects.

The legacy of COBRA resonates far beyond its brief but intense lifespan. After the group disbanded in 1951, its members pursued distinct paths which continued to ripple through the art world. Asger Jorn played a foundational role in the Situationist International, merging COBRA's spontaneity with revolutionary political thought. Karel Appel achieved international acclaim, becoming a prolific painter and sculptor moving to New York City. His students carried his bold, energetic style into new territories and new decades. Constant Nieuwenhuys developed his visionary New Babylon project, exploring utopian architecture rooted in play and creativity, aligning with COBRA's ethos of primal freedom. Corneille, in contrast, shifted toward a more lyrical nature-inspired abstraction, while Christian Dotremont deepened his exploration of poetic-visual hybrids in his logograms.

COBRA's influence is evidenced in the rise of movements like Fluxus, which embraced spontaneity, intermedia experimentation and the breaking down of barriers between art and life. Artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, with his raw, untamed expression and primal motifs channel COBRA's energy into the burgeoning Urban Art Movement of the late 20th century. Basquiat’s works, like COBRA’s, reclaim the power of untamed creativity and challenge elitist conceptions of art.

Today, COBRA's DNA can be found in the vibrant world of street art, where artists transform public spaces with expressive, non-hierarchical works celebrating freedom, community and the primal connection to the human spirit. From the spirit of graffiti, to murals, to collaborative installations, COBRA’s principles have seeded an enduring movement continuing to break boundaries, fostering a global dialogue between art and society. In this way, COBRA’s vibrant energy and insistence on collective creation remain a vital force in contemporary art, inspiring new generations to embrace the chaos and vitality of uninhibited expression