A comic view of psychoanalysis

The exhibition “On the couch. Cartoons from the New Yorker” will be on show at the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna until 24 June. As part of the 2006 Freud Year it has already brought smiles to visitors’ faces in New York, St Petersburg and Prague.

A New Yorker tradition

The foundation for the exhibition was laid in 1928, when “The New Yorker” published its first caricature on psychotherapy – a tradition that the world-famous magazine, founded in 1925 by a native of Vienna, has upheld ever since. Up to now “The New Yorker” has published more than 400 humorous cartoons on the subject.

80 of these caricatures of great intellectual and cultural interest are currently on view at the building on Berggasse 19 where the founder of psychoanalysis lived and worked for several decades.

The drawings cover a wide range of themes: from the Oedipus complex to Freud’s unpublished application of cocaine to the dream life of Henry VIII that scares his psychoanalyst to death.

Caricature as a challenge to authority

The father of psychoanalysis was quite interested in humour as well. His book “Jokes and their relation to the unconscious”, published in 1905, is a profound investigation of the nature of humour. Freud also explored the genre of caricature, the merits of which he saw in its challenge to authority.

“On tour”

The exhibition was initiated in the 2006 Freud Year with the help of the Department for Culture of the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. First shown at the Museum of the City of New York in April 2006 it then travelled to the London Freud Museum, Freud’s Dream Museum in St. Petersburg and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Prague. According to the Ministry it was a real magnet for audiences.

Outstanding success

Inge Scholz-Strasser, President of the Sigmund Freud Private Foundation and the Sigmund Freud Museum, described the 2006 Freud Year commemorating the 150th anniversary of Freud’s birth as an “outstanding success”. More than 80,000 visitors meant a new record for the museum. She was also delighted that the City of Vienna had transferred the building to the Sigmund Freud Private Foundation. Following negotiations with the federal government, plans to expand the museum could now be realised. These plans include public access to Freud’s entire premises as well as an extensive renovation; the building also houses the largest psychoanalytical library in Central Europe that needs to be restructured as well.

To focus Austria’s foreign activities on the 2006 Freud anniversary had been worth the effort, said Emil Brix, director of the Department for Culture of the Ministry of European and International Affairs. Countless activities around the globe had helped to use culture as a “soft power” of Austria’s foreign policy. He stressed that it was crucial to continue promoting Austria as a location of science and research and to encourage the dialogue between cultures.


Further information: The Couch. Thinking in Repose

Link-Tip

http://www.mcny.org/exhibitions/past/366.html

 

Information:

„On the Couch. Cartoons aus dem New Yorker“ 23 March – 24 June 2007 Sigmund Freud Museum Berggasse 19, 1090 Vienna Phone: +43-1-319 15 96 Open daily: 9.00am – 5.00pm office@freud-museum.at http://www.freud-museum.at/