La colección Prinzhorn. Descubrimiento, recepción y expropiación del arte de la locura

Abstract

The Collection of artistic works by mentally ill patients, gathered by Hans Prinzhorn in Heidelberg in the 1920’s and presented in his book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken, had a remarkable –however concealed and unacknowledged – influence on 20th century art. The best image book ever existed – as Paul Eluard called it – was spread among surrealists as a sort of “underground Bible” and it was a source of tacit inspiration for many artists such as, for instance, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Alfred Kubin and Jean Dubbufet. In the Thirties, with the rise of Nationalsocialism in Germany, the Heidelberg collection was exhibited in the Degenerated Art Show, next to modern artists’ works, in order to demonstrate the affinity between the two kinds of productions, and, therefore, the psychopathological and degenerated character of contemporary art. If this has been the most apparent form of expropriation suffered by this Collection, a more silent one is also operative at the heart of its reception, connected in fact to its “perturbing estrangement”.