The Human Animal

Abstract

OCTOBER 141, Summer 2012, pp. 53–58. © 2012 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The 1950–1951 manuscript “Menneskedyret” (The Human Animal) was discovered only after Jorn’s death and published in Danish in 1988.1 Jorn was the first to translate Kafka into Danish in the early 1940s for the art journal Helhesten, which ran from 1941 to 1944 and published nine issues.2 In this text, he counters the later appropriation of Kafka by Sartrean existentialism. “Menneskedyret” is framed by Jorn’s impending departure from Paris due to severe illness; he would spend the next year in a Danish sanatorium battling tuberculosis.