War and Trauma: Soldiers and Psychiatrists 1914 - 2014
1 November 2013 - 30 June 2014
Museum Dr Guislain, Ghent, Belgium
The Museum Dr Guislain in Ghent is an eerily fitting home for 'Soldiers and Psychiatrists 1914 - 2014.' a cacophony of experiences created by servicemen and ex-servicemen, the exhibition focuses on the mental and physical consequences of war over the last century whilst shedding light on discussions between physicians, servicemen, political leaders, the media, scientists and artists.
Several works are on loan from the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg, which sit alongside pieces by 'mainstream' artists, such as Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing. This pairing is particularly poignant because war is perhaps one of few human experiences where - for both service-people and civilians - sanity becomes a grey area. Particularly so during the First World War, when shell-shock and post-traumatic stress disorder were greeted with deep mistrust and suspicion before - in somewhat of a breakthrough - the diagnosed were handed over to medical professionals.
Several of the Prinzhorn artists had been killed under the euthanasia scheme established by the National Socialists between 1939 and 1945. In fact, Franz Karl Buhler's work itself had been, to his psychiatrists, one of the pointers of his deteriorating mental health, eventually resulting in his execution (although the official cause of death was a cardiac muscle disease). It is somewhat of a victory that these works have such precedence here. After all, during the Second World War the Collection was used to illustrate the term 'degenerate' and paraded in front of the German public in Entartete Kunst in 1937.
In a moving way, 'Soldiers and Psychiatrists' illuminates the hinterland between mental ill-health and simply 'being human,' but above all, the exhibition succeeds in evoking empathy for the way in which people attempted to relieve a universal suffering.
Several works are on loan from the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg, which sit alongside pieces by 'mainstream' artists, such as Turner Prize winner Gillian Wearing. This pairing is particularly poignant because war is perhaps one of few human experiences where - for both service-people and civilians - sanity becomes a grey area. Particularly so during the First World War, when shell-shock and post-traumatic stress disorder were greeted with deep mistrust and suspicion before - in somewhat of a breakthrough - the diagnosed were handed over to medical professionals.
Several of the Prinzhorn artists had been killed under the euthanasia scheme established by the National Socialists between 1939 and 1945. In fact, Franz Karl Buhler's work itself had been, to his psychiatrists, one of the pointers of his deteriorating mental health, eventually resulting in his execution (although the official cause of death was a cardiac muscle disease). It is somewhat of a victory that these works have such precedence here. After all, during the Second World War the Collection was used to illustrate the term 'degenerate' and paraded in front of the German public in Entartete Kunst in 1937.
In a moving way, 'Soldiers and Psychiatrists' illuminates the hinterland between mental ill-health and simply 'being human,' but above all, the exhibition succeeds in evoking empathy for the way in which people attempted to relieve a universal suffering.