Wellcome Collection – Madness & Modernity

Mental Illness and the Visual Arts in Vienna 1900 – Major Exhibition

Apr 13, 2009

Model of the Narrenturm, Vienna , Technisches Museum, Vienna

The exhibition demonstrates how psychiatric practises influenced modernism in the visual arts, and how this art movement shaped the lives and images of the mentally ill.

London's Wellcome Collection is renowned for its groundbreaking exhibitions related to medicine. Their newest show explores the relationship between mental illness and the visual arts in Vienna at the turn of the 20th Century.

Madness & Modernity demonstrates how early modernism in the visual arts was influenced by psychiatric practises and how this art movement affected the lives and images of the mentally ill.

The display features around 80 exhibits, most of which date from between 1890 and 1914. On show are artworks created by asylum patients, therapeutic equipment, architectural models and drawings, plus paintings by artists such as Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele. The work of modernist architects Otto Wagner and Josef Hoffman (founder members of the Vienna Secession artistic group) is also featured.

Madness & Modernity – Layout of the Exhibition

Madness & Modernity is divided into six distinct focus points:

The Tower of Fools – This section examines the Tower of Fools, the Narrenturm, the world's first building designed for the accommodation of the mentally ill. The building consisted of five stacked rings each containing 28 cells which opened onto a circular corridor. Inmates slept on straw and received only rudimentary nourishment. The Emperor Joseph II, his physician Joseph Quarin, and engineer Joseph Gerl were all involved in the design and the Tower is often mistaken for an example of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, first proposed in 1790. A specially commissioned film, by the artist David Bickerstaff, explores The Tower of Fools.
The Modernist Mental Hospital – This area focuses on the architecture of Am Steinhof, a psychiatric hospital which opened in 1907. It comprised 60 separate buildings and could accommodate 2,500 patients. Several architectural drawings by Otto Wagner are displayed together with a scale diorama of the hospital's layout.
The Therapeutic Spectrum – This section looks at where mental health patients were treated. Richard von Krafft-Ebing established the Purkersdorf Sanatorium (designed by Josef Hoffman) on the outskirts of Vienna. The ultra-modern and technologically advanced hospital is compared with Sigmund Freud's personal consulting room, which is cluttered and untidy. Included in the display is a Persian rug used by Freud to cover his psychoanalytic couch and a mechanotherapy chair (exercise bike).
The Pathological Artist – Egon Schiele (1890–1918) was regarded by critics as a pathological artist. Throughout his life he was pre-occupied with his face and body, depicting himself gesticulating, shouting, grimacing and masturbating. The exhibition features numerous self-portraits by Schiele.
The Pathological Patron – This section includes portraits by Egon Schiele, Otto Kokoschka, Max Oppenheimer and Gustav Jagerspacher who depicted their patrons with withered bodies and/or twitching faces, as if all were mentally ill.
The Patient Artist – The exhibition features images by two psychiatric patients, Josef Karl Radler, and "Frau ST" who were both residents in psychiatric hospitals in Vienna around 1900.

Madness and Modernity: the Book

Madness and Modernity, published by Lund Humphries, accompanies this exhibition. The publication is edited by art historian Gemma Blackshaw and architectural historian Leslie Topp, with contributions by Dr Nicola Imrie, Dr Luke Heighton, Dr Sabine Wieber and Dr Geoffrey C. Howes. The book features more than 100 images plus essays examining works of special importance.

Bobby Baker's Diary Drawings

This exhibition, also at the Wellcome, coincides with Madness & Modernity. It features drawings by Bobby Baker who explores the theme of mental health based on personal experiences. This exhibition will be on view until 2nd August 2009.

Madness & Modernity: Mental illness and the visual arts in Vienna 1900 will be on view until 28th June 2009. There is an programme of public events and full details are available from the Wellcome Collection.

The copyright of the article Wellcome Collection – Madness & Modernity in Special Art Gallery Exhibits is owned by Frances Spiegel. Permission to republish Wellcome Collection – Madness & Modernity in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.