Creation and Delirium | Paco Díaz

“CREATION AND DELIRIUM”, which could also be called “CRAZY WOMEN”, is composed of a collection of books by female artists who at some point in their lives passed through a psychiatric hospital. The case of Yayoi Kusama is well known; she voluntarily admitted herself to treat her obsessive-compulsive disorder and hallucinations. Art served as a form of therapy. Leonora Carrington was admitted to a psychiatric center in Santander after suffering a gang rape in Madrid. She managed to escape the hospital and reach Lisbon, from where she departed for Mexico. At that time, her work changed, influenced by the experience she had suffered. Ángeles Santos was institutionalized by her family shortly after painting her most famous work, “Un mundo” (A World), before she had even turned twenty. If you were a woman and you seemed different, you were uncomfortable with your surroundings, or you had attitudes deemed eccentric, it was easy to be called hysterical. If you were a man, the word that came to mind was genius. Now “Un mundo” captures all the attention in the room where it is exhibited, at the Reina Sofía, eclipsing the paintings around it, among which is Dalí's “Figura en una ventana” (Figure in a Window). Dora Maar was admitted to a mental sanatorium after her breakup with Picasso. Fortunately, she was released soon after, unlike Camille Claudel. On the website of the Rodin Museum, one can read, “Camille Claudel was a young and promising artist when she met Rodin in the early 1880s. Sculpture occupies a central place in her story. The student, 24 years younger than him, inexorably becomes his collaborator, his lover, and his muse.” The word muse associated with great artists. Still. In “CREATION AND DELIRIUM,” there are also volumes dedicated to Niki de Saint Phalle, Jeanne Tripier, Aloïse, and Unica Zürn. And one more book, unnamed, because surely there are more “crazy” artists.