First published: Autumn 2024
Last year, Gugging director Johann Feilacher retired 40 years after taking the reins from founder Leo Navratil and turning the centre in a new direction
If a word or term becomes imprinted into art history – becomes a catchphrase or byword – then it must have caused substantial change, or at least irritation, within that world. “Gugging” is such a term. Gugging is the name of a small, sleepy community 12 or so miles north of the Austrian capital, Vienna. In the region, it used to be synonymous with “lunatic asylum” because of the large, state Maria Gugging Psychiatric Clinic on its outskirts. Today, Gugging stands for an art project that has significantly influenced the perception of so-called “outsider art” around the world.
Walla, Fairytale, 1989, acrylic on canvas, 63 x 79 in. / 160 x 200 cm; courtesy: State Collections of Lower Austria
The project was established in 1981 by pioneering psychiatrist Leo Navratil. Five years later, Gugging was taken over by Johann Feilacher and transformed into what it is today. Feilacher retired last year and, in order to understand his Gugging and his achievements, his work must be distinguished, not only from that of his predecessor, but also from that of most previous theorists and protagonists of the art brut and outsider art fields.
Hauser, Naked Woman with Hat, 1986, pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 40 x 29 in. / 102 x 73 cm; courtesy: Diamond Collection Vienna
In 1983, when young psychiatrist Feilacher started working at – what was then – the Gugging state psychiatric clinic, he was aware that he would encounter a traditional care system that differed significantly from the humanistic and medical standards of modern psychiatry. He had left a job at the more progressive University Clinic in Graz to work as Navratil’s assistant at his Centre for Art-Psychotherapy in Gugging.
Feilacher with Raw Vision‘s John Maizels in 2014, courtesy: T Feilacher
Navratil, the clinic’s chief psychiatrist, had set up the centre in a small, secluded ward pavilion in the clinic’s grounds two years before, taking with him 18 of the long-term patients from his ward for men with chronic illnesses and disabilities.
By FLORIAN REESE and NINA ANSPERGER
This is an article extract; read the full article in Raw Vision #120.
