Since the beginning of 2022, there has been a small working group on the topic of “normal#crazy art. Works from a psychiatric context between exclusion and inclusion after 1945” at the Prinzhorn Collection, consisting of Prof. Dr. Maike Rotzoll, medical historian at the University of Marburg, PD Dr. Thomas Röske, art historian and head of the Prinzhorn Collection, Caterina Gümpel, art historian and doctoral student/Heidelberg, and Dr. Christof Beyer, medical historian and research assistant/Marburg. The group is part of the larger interdisciplinary, DFG-funded research project “normal#verrückt. Contemporary History of an Eroding Difference”, which primarily involves staff from several medical history institutes in Germany.

The Heidelberg cultural studies and art history project is concerned with researching the changed perception and reception of a series of artistic works by psychiatric patients between 1945 and 1990, especially those that were initially used by doctors in psychiatric institutions as diagnostic aids, but which later became part of the art business and art market in society as a whole as Art Brut or Outsider Art. As in the other sub-projects of “normal#crazy”, it can also be seen in the field of art that no radical re-evaluation of “crazy” took place, but that certain characteristics of the works formerly called “psychopathological art” continued to attract attention, albeit under different auspices. For example, what psychiatrists saw as a “symptom” of mental illness now became a sign of particular authenticity. However, the process of change is complex, is based on the exchange between various actors (artists, curators, gallery owners, collectors, psychiatrists) and has only been explored in a few facets, such as the section “Bildnerei der Geisteskranken” at documenta 5, 1972.