Anima-L

In the organizer's words:

The exhibition Anima-L presents for the first time a large number of historical and contemporary artistic works from the Prinzhorn Collection in which animals appear as representatives of exceptional emotional experiences. Here, animals illustrate emotions, are projection surfaces for identity, means of communication or mirror images of human behavior.

In "La Création", Konrad Zeuner focuses on the creation and significance of animals and humans. Hans Wühr and Caterina Gendriess show prehistoric animals and fantastic creatures that "could have been reality" at the beginning of the world. The survival of the fittest or best adapted also stands for the experience in the asylum, as does the ambivalent motif of the hunt: who is hunter, who is prey?

Criticism of society or psychiatry is presented in humorous or biting animal figurations. Franz Hamminger brands the institution as an "abdeculture" and depicts psychiatrists as apes and rhinoceroses who torment their patients. And Karl Genzel calls his carved wooden relief of a kneeling ruminant a "cow going Catholic".

Animals with human features are often beasts. As monsters, devils or demons, they embody the threatening, the sinister, the unspeakable. One example is the "devil goat", which appeared to a patient in the forest around 1926 and was depicted by him in an impressive charcoal drawing.

The longing for security and sexuality is expressed through intimate but also irritating animal-human compositions. Animals can promise comfort and healing for patients, for example in the form of a phoenix capable of regeneration. However, they also stand for misfortune, sorrow and fear, as in Lea Hürlimann's dream images. The bird symbolizes freedom, the butterfly is a metaphor for the soul, transformation and resurrection.

Mounted animals as vehicles into a utopian world and hybrids between animal and human, animal and technology, animal and plant, animal and architecture or animal and musical instrument evoke a fascinating intermediate sphere as symbols of creativity and open the door to the imagination.

In addition to fantastic animal motifs, however, impressively specific studies based on nature are also presented - the crew of "Noah's Ark" is represented by everything from insect sketches to depictions of predators.