As part of the effort to create the exhibition ‘Ovartaci & the Art of Madness’, curator Mathias Kryger, in cooperation with Museum Ovartaci and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, conducted thorough research into Ovartaci’s practice and his impact on posterity. That has now resulted in a comprehensive publication on Ovartaci’s art and photographic documentation of the artist’s works.
Kunsthal Charlottenborg presents
The exhibition ‘Ovartaci & the Art of Madness’ is presented at Kunsthal Charlottenborg from 15 September 2017 through 14 January 2018. It is the biggest Ovartaci exhibition to date outside the setting of the Psychiatric Hospital in Risskov, Denmark. In addition to a comprehensive presentation of the artist’s oeuvre, the exhibition presents works by leading contemporary artists who are inspired by Ovartaci’s work. With the exhibition and the accompanying publication, Kunsthal Charlottenborg hopes to initiate a dialogue about the perception of madness in society and its potential as a creative force.
The outsider artist
The Danish artist Ovartaci is an important exponent of what is known as art brut or outsider art. ‘Ovartaci’ can be read as ‘Overtossen’ (Chief Loon). The artist, whose real name was Louis Marcussen (1894–1985), adopted this alias after he became a patient at the Psychiatric Hospital in Risskov in 1926.
He remained a patient at the hospital for 56 years, during which time he created a large and multifaceted production of 1,000 works which are completely unique in form and content, in both a Danish and international context. A persistent aspect of Ovartaci’s universe is his use of figurative and almost surrealist motifs and of transformations and transitions between male and female, animal and human, landscape and face.
Museum Ovartaci
Museum Ovartaci is a specialized art and cultural history museum attached to the Psychiatric Hospital in Risskov. The core of the museum’s collections, and the focus of its endeavour, consist of works by psychiatric patients, who for more than 100 years have contributed to creating the biggest art collection of this nature in the Nordic region. The museum’s artistic expression contributes to dialogue and insights into the diversity of the human mind and human potentials.
The New Carlsberg Foundation has provided economic support for the preparation of a new business plan for Museum Ovartaci with a view to securing the museum, which became threatened by closure due to budget cuts in Central Denmark Region in 2016.
