The interaction of psychotic art and the modern avant-garde

The birth of psychotic art begins with the examination of the concept of "madness" by assigning it the status of a disease. Towards the end of the 19th century, with the use of art for therapeutic purposes, collections of patient paintings began to emerge. The most popular of these collections belongs to psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn. The Prinzhorn Collection became the focus of the "creative illness" debates of the period. At the beginning of the 20th century, despite the devastating effects of the First World War and the rising class polarization brought about by industrialization, cultural differences and the monopoly of art by the bourgeois class in Europe, and its commodification by turning into an investment tool, a group of Avant-garde artists also exhibited an anti-art attitude by starting the Dada movement. During this period, avant-garde artists were in search of new things, causing them to turn their attention to collections of these patient paintings. During this period, artists such as Andre Breton and Salvador Dali met Sigmund Freud and turned to the "unconscious" concept of psychoanalytic theory and the "free association" methods that reveal it. As a result of these trends towards the unconscious in art, similar elements began to attract attention in the works of psychotic art and the Avant-Garde artists of the modern period. The new essays that emerged in this period were discussed in a discussion environment that included the formal similarities of the works, the cultural environment and social dynamics of the century, and Constructivism and the Bauhaus school, which were the opposite pole of the avant-garde. The cognitive structure behind the formal features reflected in psychotic art has been investigated psychoanalytically, focusing on the creation processes. The function of art in therapies, its integrative and restorative role is included. As a result, within the scope of this research study, the concept of "psychotic art" is discussed from a theoretical perspective and it is aimed to add a new interpretation by including its artistic value, which is the subject of discussion, and its interaction with Avant-garde movements.