A Home for Crazy Artists

April 28, 2002 9:46 AM

A Home for Crazy Artists - "The Haus der Künstler (House of Artists) at the Lower Austrian Psychiatric Hospital in the hamlet of Gugging, outside Vienna, was established by psychiatrist Leo Navratil, who began to notice that the art produced by certain of his patients far transcended the qualitative parameters of traditional art therapy ... The Gugging colony has exhibited throughout Europe, the United States and Japan, and is widely recognized for its pioneering integrity and quality."
posted by sheauga (3 comments total)

Very nice! thanks.
posted by Postroad at 9:54 AM on April 28, 2002

thank you, sheauga. Tschirtner and Garber's work has that quality of deceptive simplicity, of a child co-existing with a hypnotist.
posted by vacapinta at 10:43 PM on April 28, 2002

I'm a bit late to the party, but the Lausanne Collection de l'Art Brut and Baltimore's wonderful American Visionary Arts Museum have work that's along these lines. The AVAM has even exhibited some of Tschirtner's work.

The Lausanne collection was, as far as I know, the first collection of outsider art in the world. The core of the collection, largely the work of mental patients, was assembled by the painter and Art Brut collector Jean Dubuffet.
posted by snarkout at 3:02 PM on April 30, 2002