Hallucination art4/25/2023 ![]() Upon returning to his Paris studio at night, he would go to bed sometimes without supper, where he would see things, including shapes on the ceiling, before jotting them down in a notebook. Janis Mink summarizes his process in her book, Miro. The surrealist painter himself explained the way that he conceived the subjects of his art. ĭespite his eventual fame, Joan Miro (1893-1983) was once a starving artist. ![]() In the book, readers are treated to a ludicrous sex scene in which the main character daydreams he’s trapped in a garden full of insects and animals walking crab-style. Although he was able to rid himself, intermittently, of the crustaceans that haunted him, the crabs reappeared in Sartre’s experimental and ground-breaking 1938 novel La Nausée ( Nausea). After that, Sartre understood that the crabs that had pursued him symbolized the philosopher’s fear of being alone. Part of his campaign of redemption that followed included his consultation with famed psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Sartre’s adventure ended with a mental breakdown. Not only did bizarre, frightening crustaceans pursue him wherever he went, but ordinary objects transformed themselves into animals, “his clock an owl, his umbrella to a vulture.” He prevailed upon his friend, Daniel Lagache, a medical doctor, to punch his ticket, so to speak, by injecting his patient with mescaline, which was used at the time to treat alcoholism and depression.Īs a result, Sartre experienced a “bad trip.” Writer Emily Zarevich describes some of the more salient features of Sartre’s mind-blowing adventure. In 1935, French existential philosopher, novelist, and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) decided to take a trip-a very special kind of trip. 9 Stalking Crustaceans and Bizarre Transformations While marked by hallucinations and “the disintegration of one’s sense of self and identity, leading to anxiety and paranoia.” Kusama’s art is therapeutic, allowing the painter to reconsolidate the fear of disintegration that the artist experiences. Kim points out that although not specifically diagnosed, it is consistent with psychosis and possible schizophrenia. Kusama’s art also helps the artist herself cope with, and even transcend, her mental illness. Kim cites the artist’s Infinity Rooms as an example: “These rooms are small self-contained mirror chambers, allowing the viewer to simultaneously lose one’s identity and sense of self in the infinity of a repeated image evoking the universe.” She adds the paintings capture the reality of selfies, which have become increasingly popular in recent years, as they’ve been distributed rapidly far and wide via social media. Kim describes Kusama’s art as a mixture of abstract expressionism and conceptual art characterized by its graphic, colorful, and somewhat futuristic images. ![]() The Japanese painter’s work features polka dots, the trademark theme she developed when she was 10 years old, and incorporates imagery from the hallucinations that the artist experiences. Jean Kim believes Yayoi Kusama’s art teaches us how to live.
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