‘THE FRAGILE SELF – Art and Therapy Past and Present’

“I keep watch over collapsed beauties.”

The exhibition brings to life the history of Hungarian psychiatric art collections, presenting works by patients treated at the mental asylum, art brut works created outside the institution, written and visual documents, and a sound art work of “multitonal rhythms” inspired by psychiatrist István Hollós’s book (My Farewell to the Yellow House, 1927) and designed by Matthew Faulkner, as a FREEPSY collaborator (UK). The exhibition sheds light on the vulnerability of those living with psychiatric illness, the fate of works created within institutional settings, and the progressive museum initiatives of the interwar period.

Opening date: Friday 18 September 2026, 5.00 pm

Venue: MNMKK Semmelweis Museum of the History of Medicine

Address: 1013 Budapest, Apród utca 1–3.

Welcome address:

Zsolt Sári, State Secretary for Public Collections and Heritage Protection

Opening speech:

Csaba Pléh, psychologist and linguist, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) and the Academia Europaea

The exhibition will be open to the public from 18 September 2026 to 27 June 2027.

The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Institute of Art History at the ELTE Research Centre for the Humanities, the Psychiatric Art Collection of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and the Semmelweis Museum of the History of Medicine, part of the Hungarian National Museum’s Public Collections Centre.

Special thanks to the Archives of the Ferenczi Sándor Association, and  FREEPSY (Free Clinics and a Psychoanalysis for the People: Progressive Histories, Collective Practices, Implications for our Times, University of Essex, UK)

Supported by NKA.

Lecture by Tobias Möllmer at the Research Centre for the Humanities

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Psychiatric Art Collection of HAS - Winter Recess

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The Institute of Art History's publication entitled "People, not tailcoats. Great figures in Hungarian art history writing"

For the handbook project, which was developed in collaboration between the BTK Institute of Art History and the Enigma journal, nearly one hundred art historians, including several academics and university professors, have written monographic biographical studies on the great figures of Hungarian art historiography, supplemented with selected bibliographies and short, encyclopedia-style career profiles. One of the greatest undertakings of the Institute of Art History is this well-known handbook of art historiography, series entitled "People, Not Tailcoats: Great Figures in Hungarian Art History Writing". The 13th volume was published in 2025, with the editorial collaboration of András Ferkai.

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