Endless Imagination

The exhibition Endless Imagination features entries for the Special Award 2023-2024, a promotional program and visual arts competition for artists with disabilities. For this exhibition, Museum Cobra invited the (grand)children of Cobra artists Eugène Brands and Shinkichi Tajiri to make a selection from the submitted works. In addition, several professionals and various museums chose their favorites from the submissions. From each selection, Museum Cobra then chose works that resonate with the ideas of the Cobra movement.

Art by people with disabilities was an important source of inspiration for the Cobra artists. Defying academic rules, they found purity and uninhibitedness in Art Brut.

Both Karel Appel and Corneille visited exhibitions at Hôpital Sainte-Anne, Paris’ psychiatric institution. Appel bought the catalogue which consisted solely of text and used it as a sketchbook. Corneille provided his copy with drawings in the margin. Artist Eugène Brands also read books on the subject, which he always kept. Danish painter Carl-Henning Pedersen even said, ‘I wish I could paint as well.