Exhibition: the visual arts and mental illness in Vienna

As we all know, the line between genius and madness is very fine and there are many points at which psychiatric discourse and art overlap. It is this which the ‘Madness & Modernity’ exhibition in the Wien Museum on Karlsplatz seeks to show. Until 2 May 2010, visitors can go crazy about the history of mental illness in Vienna…

That which is somewhat strange and abnormal has always exerted a powerful attraction on people. In six different sections, the ‘Madness & Modernity: Mental Illness and the Visual Arts in Vienna 1900’ exhibition shows how psychiatry, visual arts and architecture and design confront the subject of madness.

Insanity has a long tradition in Vienna

The exhibition starts off in 18th century Vienna, presenting madness of the period with Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s famous ‘character heads’ and the ‘Narrenturm’ (madhouse tower), an institution for dangerous lunatics. In the course of the 19th century, ideas concerning how best to detain the mentally ill changed and the largest and most modern psychiatric hospital in Europe was built near Vienna.

Socially acceptable madness

In affluent Viennese society, it was almost fashionable to be a bit hysterical and Purkersdorf Sanatorium was built with this social class in mind, becoming an ideal retreat for highly-strung city dwellers. Sigmund Freud’s writings on psychoanalysis are considered today to be groundbreaking in the field of medical research into insanity. The highlight of the exhibition is the original rug with two cushions from Freud’s psychoanalytic couch, on loan from the Sigmund Freud Museum in London.

Mad pictures of the time

Besides Freud, numerous Viennese artists and architects around 1900 addressed the subject of mental illness and psychiatry. Oskar Kokoschka painted a portrait of a well-known patient at Steinhof hospital, the writer Ludwig von Janikowski. Egon Schiele was fascinated by the representation of misshapen bodies and also painted abnormal self-portraits. The exhibition concludes with works from before the First World War by inmates of a psychiatric institution.