Ocd: A Collection Of One’s Own
07 May - 04 Sep 2016
OCD: A COLLECTION OF ONE’S OWN.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder and contemporary image in the MUSAC and DA2 Collections
7 May - 4 September 2016
Curator: Jorge Blasco Gallardo
Coordination: Koré Escobar y Raquel Álvarez (DALSER S.L.), Registration area.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder (such as agoraphobia and social anxiety) characterised by distressing, repetitive and intrusive thoughts, apprehension, fear or anxiety, and repetitive behaviour in the form of compulsions designed to alleviate the associated anxiety.
In general, art and mental disorders have had a twofold relationship: one the one hand, the art of the insane, which has aroused so much interest in the medical profession; on the other, to find in the painted or photographed scene the iconography of insanity, hysteria, and alienation, normally in portraits or scenes depicted with one or other medium. How does one distance oneself from the classic image to imagine what someone with OCD is suffering? What do the images and artefacts in an art collection have to say about OCD? Nothing, in fact, until they are prompted with that intention.
This is the theme of OCD: A COLLECTION OF ONE"S OWN, to approach the pictures with a view to striking up a dialogue with this disorder. This is the important part, they are not the work of the sick, and do not necessarily deal with obsession. One might say they are an approach to OCD through works that were never designed for this purpose.
At this venue for the project, the works on display have been selected from MUSAC’s own collection, seeking those that facilitate the task of activating them and prompting their own reading. A similar process has taken place at the exhibition’s other venue, DA2 in Salamanca, with its own collection. Responsibility for the selection fell to the curator, who is very familiar with the disorder.
The work undertaken at MUSAC has involved five psychiatrists and psychoanalysts and a curator, the project’s mentor, with whom the mental health professionals have maintained a conversation based on, or rather with, the works.
These professionals are Montse Rodríguez (psychoanalyst), José María Álvarez (psychoanalyst), Jesús Morchón (psychiatrist), Guillermo Rendueles (psychiatrist), and Fernando Vicente (psychoanalyst).
One should not expect this project to present a commentary on the “history of art”, but instead an experience informed by the relationship between texts and images. In other words, they are not explanatory texts, but instead texts drafted by professionals who are sometimes closer to psychopathology, while others are automatic, texts “de auteur”, clinical reports on the works, etc. In short, texts that distance themselves from positivism, exploring mental illness through resources often of a literary nature.
On the other hand, and of no less importance to the project, it should be noted that the professionals have not worked with the pieces directly, but instead with documents, applying the notion that these are just as much a part of the work as the actual pieces on display.
Working with art documents is far from being a mere anecdote: the aim is to shed light on the concealed part of the work that is, nonetheless, vital to its existence.
This crossover of documents, which provides a view of the piece and allows writing about it, is therefore wholly premeditated. Its aim is not to weigh the piece down under the looks of the professionals writing about it, whereby their texts emerge from what the document prompts, and not from the traditional diktat the piece exerts on the eye.
The documents have been used to draft the notes provided for visitors, and which contain the texts produced.
OCD is becoming popular; opinion-makers talk about it as if it were a real entity, and not a complex construct that is used on the basis of “one-size-fits-all”, in the same way that depression has been used for years.
On the other hand, it is very easy to identify the obsessive trait in many contemporary artworks, but this project’s aim is not to diagnose works and authors. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it seeks to implement a theoretical apparatus whose poetics and politics will reveal the complexity of embracing the acronym OCD compared to how easy it is to use DSM V, which is directly responsible for that abbreviation. This means that an expository device has been created that prefers to add complexity to the approach to OCD, rather than to explain it as a mere scientific disorder.
The project has two venues: MUSAC in León and DA2 in Salamanca. The same methodology has been used for the work on the collection in Salamanca.
Visitors to both venues may build up a file with the texts forthcoming from this work process.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder and contemporary image in the MUSAC and DA2 Collections
7 May - 4 September 2016
Curator: Jorge Blasco Gallardo
Coordination: Koré Escobar y Raquel Álvarez (DALSER S.L.), Registration area.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder (such as agoraphobia and social anxiety) characterised by distressing, repetitive and intrusive thoughts, apprehension, fear or anxiety, and repetitive behaviour in the form of compulsions designed to alleviate the associated anxiety.
In general, art and mental disorders have had a twofold relationship: one the one hand, the art of the insane, which has aroused so much interest in the medical profession; on the other, to find in the painted or photographed scene the iconography of insanity, hysteria, and alienation, normally in portraits or scenes depicted with one or other medium. How does one distance oneself from the classic image to imagine what someone with OCD is suffering? What do the images and artefacts in an art collection have to say about OCD? Nothing, in fact, until they are prompted with that intention.
This is the theme of OCD: A COLLECTION OF ONE"S OWN, to approach the pictures with a view to striking up a dialogue with this disorder. This is the important part, they are not the work of the sick, and do not necessarily deal with obsession. One might say they are an approach to OCD through works that were never designed for this purpose.
At this venue for the project, the works on display have been selected from MUSAC’s own collection, seeking those that facilitate the task of activating them and prompting their own reading. A similar process has taken place at the exhibition’s other venue, DA2 in Salamanca, with its own collection. Responsibility for the selection fell to the curator, who is very familiar with the disorder.
The work undertaken at MUSAC has involved five psychiatrists and psychoanalysts and a curator, the project’s mentor, with whom the mental health professionals have maintained a conversation based on, or rather with, the works.
These professionals are Montse Rodríguez (psychoanalyst), José María Álvarez (psychoanalyst), Jesús Morchón (psychiatrist), Guillermo Rendueles (psychiatrist), and Fernando Vicente (psychoanalyst).
One should not expect this project to present a commentary on the “history of art”, but instead an experience informed by the relationship between texts and images. In other words, they are not explanatory texts, but instead texts drafted by professionals who are sometimes closer to psychopathology, while others are automatic, texts “de auteur”, clinical reports on the works, etc. In short, texts that distance themselves from positivism, exploring mental illness through resources often of a literary nature.
On the other hand, and of no less importance to the project, it should be noted that the professionals have not worked with the pieces directly, but instead with documents, applying the notion that these are just as much a part of the work as the actual pieces on display.
Working with art documents is far from being a mere anecdote: the aim is to shed light on the concealed part of the work that is, nonetheless, vital to its existence.
This crossover of documents, which provides a view of the piece and allows writing about it, is therefore wholly premeditated. Its aim is not to weigh the piece down under the looks of the professionals writing about it, whereby their texts emerge from what the document prompts, and not from the traditional diktat the piece exerts on the eye.
The documents have been used to draft the notes provided for visitors, and which contain the texts produced.
OCD is becoming popular; opinion-makers talk about it as if it were a real entity, and not a complex construct that is used on the basis of “one-size-fits-all”, in the same way that depression has been used for years.
On the other hand, it is very easy to identify the obsessive trait in many contemporary artworks, but this project’s aim is not to diagnose works and authors. Quite the opposite, in fact, as it seeks to implement a theoretical apparatus whose poetics and politics will reveal the complexity of embracing the acronym OCD compared to how easy it is to use DSM V, which is directly responsible for that abbreviation. This means that an expository device has been created that prefers to add complexity to the approach to OCD, rather than to explain it as a mere scientific disorder.
The project has two venues: MUSAC in León and DA2 in Salamanca. The same methodology has been used for the work on the collection in Salamanca.
Visitors to both venues may build up a file with the texts forthcoming from this work process.