5 December 2024 to 30 March 2025

The exhibition Anima-L presents for the first time a large number of historical and contemporary works of art from the Prinzhorn Collection in which animals appear as proxies for extraordinary psychological experiences. Animals illustrate emotions, serve as a projection screen for identity, are a means of communication, or mirror human behavior. 

In “La Création,” Konrad Zeuner focuses on the creation and meaning of animals and humans. Hans Wühr and Caterina Gendriess show prehistoric animals and fantastic creatures that “could have been reality” at the beginning of the world. The survival of the fittest or the best adapted also stands for the experience in the asylum, as does the ambivalent motif of the hunt: who is the hunter, who is the prey? 

Criticism of society or psychiatry is presented in humorous or biting animal figurations. Franz Hamminger calls the institution a “slaughterhouse” and depicts psychiatrists as apes and rhinoceroses tormenting their patients. And Karl Genzel calls his carved wooden relief of a kneeling ruminant a “cow going Catholic.” 

Animals with human features are often beasts. As monsters, devils, or demons, they embody the threatening, the sinister, the unspeakable. One example is the “Devil Goat,” which appeared to a patient in the woods around 1926 and which he depicted in an impressive charcoal drawing. 

The longing for security and sexuality is expressed through intimate but also disturbing animal-human compositions. Animals can promise comfort and healing for patients, for example in the form of a phoenix capable of regeneration. But they can also represent misfortune, grief, and fear, as in Lea Hürlimann’s dream images. The bird symbolizes freedom, the butterfly is a metaphor for the soul, transformation and resurrection. 

Riding animals as vehicles into a utopian world and hybrids between animal/human, animal/technology, animal/plant, animal/architecture or animal/musical instrument evoke a fascinating in-between world as symbols of creativity and open the door to imagination. 

In addition to fantastic animal motifs, there are also impressive, specific studies based on nature – the crew of “Noah's Ark” is represented by everything from insect sketches to depictions of predators.