This lecture began with an overview of disability models, psychoanalytic perspectives of psychology, and surrealist principles, leading up to discussion of Hans Prinzhorn’s Artistry of the Mentally Ill (1922). Dr. DeLancey described Prinzhorn as having had a history of education in art and psychology, and she used his work to open up conversation on the fetishization and othering of the neurodivergent in multiple ways. Psychology at this time was all about Freud; everyone had an unconscious mind and symptomatic behaviors were merely indicative of latent thought needing to become manifest. Surrealism, an artistic movement of the time intending to challenge societal conventions by opening up the aforementioned unconscious mind, fixated on the minds of children, “primitive” (non-Western) cultures and societies, and the mentally ill. I contend that this fixation is not only fetishizing and mystifying, but a practice of cultural voyeurism. It is not the easiest argument to make, given that culture typically implies group identity, and mental illness had no clear-cut definition, but I am stickin’ with my gut on this one. The medical model aimed to eliminate disability, though medical institutions held more than just disabled individuals (insert long history of institutionalizing individuals over sexuality, gender, politics, etc.); institutionalized identity is broader than that which the surrealists aimed to objectify and appropriate. They wanted the edginess of all those that had been othered, but they specifically wanted the psychiatrically disabled; they wanted a lived experience they could never have, even if they tried (which they did, of course, with drugs). More bluntly, surrealist interest in the art of the mentally ill did little to encourage the creators or grant them autonomy or freedom; even Prinzhorn’s work pushed no boundaries. At best, it co-opted trauma narrative and commodified their creative endeavors (which, even with payout and consent, definitely played into saneism and infantilization for the way it was carried out).
WC: 311
I pledge: Rebekah Stone
