Arch of Hysteria – Between Madness and Ecstasy Cat. Museum der Moderne Salzburg

The » great arc« or » arc de cercle« (Arch of Hysteria) with its ambivalence of loss of control and domination, is a seductive motif that has a long tradition in the history of art and culture. It can be found in representations of dance and acrobatics, though it also describes physical or psychological illnesses: the overextended (female) body expresses ecstatic rapture or even a psychotic disorder, yet in dance it stands for virtuoso body control and expressiveness. With » Arch of Hysteria« , the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, centers an exhibition entirely on this powerful visual motif. Works of art from the last one hundred years and various contexts, are on display, tracing the variety of expressive possibilities inherent in the pose – to the point of transforming it into abstract, yet expressive and therefore unmistakable forms. The book and the exhibition illuminate the (art) historical roots of the motif as well as current adaptations in painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and video and performance art. Among the protagonists are Denis Darzacq, Max Ernst, Gustav Klimt, Alfred Kubin, Auguste Rodin, Alexandra Bircken, Louise Bourgeois, Valie Export and many others.

Paul Verhaeghe teaches as a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst at Ghent University. An internationally renowned Freud and Lacan specialist, he is the author of several books; his latest » What About Me? The struggle for identity in a market-based society« (9781922247377; Scribe publisher) has been translated into several languages. Lena Nievers studied art history and English language and literature in Aberdeen. 2008 PhD in art history at the University of Cologne and got curator at Kunsthalle Emden. Since 2018 she is curator and head of the collection of Modern Art at Museum der Moderne Salzburg. Christina von Braun is cultural theorist, author and filmmaker. Born in Rome in 1944, sh studied in the USA and Germany. From 1969 to 1981 based in Paris as a freelance author and filmmaker. From 1997 founder and until 2002 director of the Gender Studies program at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 2013, Christina von Braun received the Sigmund Freud Culture Prize, awarded by the German Psychoanalytic Association to non-analysts who apply psychoanalytic theories to cultural phenomena. In 2014, she received the Hedwig Dohm Medal of the German Association of Women Journalists. Kerstin Stremmel became increasingly interested in art history and photography in particular during her studies for the higher service in academic libraries and documentation centers (graduation with a diploma). In 2000, her doctoral studies in art history and German language and literature were followed by a dissertation on the citation in photography. Since then she has taught photography theory at the University of Cologne and the Hochschule fü r Gestaltung in Zurich. Since 2021, she is now the Collection Manager and Curator of Photography and Media Art at the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg. Born in London, Esther Freud is the daughter of Bernardine Coverley and painter Lucian Freud. She is also a great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and nice of Clement Freud. She travelled extensively with her mother as a child, returning to London at 16 to train as an actress at The Drama Centre. She lives in London and is married with the actor David Morrissey, they have three children. Mariama Diagne is a dance scholar and trained dancer. Since 2022, she works as postdoc at the DFG collaborative research centre 1512 on » Intervening arts« where she explores the intertwining of theory and practice through poetic analysis, casting anticolonial perspectives on the canon and present of the performing arts and their social location. As a dramatic advisor with a focus on dance and writing, she accompanies artists with postcolonial approach at Ballhaus Naunynstraß e. She is chair of the board of Gesellschaft fü r Tanzforschung (gtf). Harald Krejci (b. 1970) studied art history, art didactics and Italian philology in Munich and Augsburg. In 2009, he came to Vienna’ s Belvedere, where from 2016 he was chief curator for the three houses of the Federal Museum as well as head of the 20th century collection. Since the beginning of 2023, the 52-year-old has now presided over the Museum der Moderne Salzburg as its new director.

Harald Krejci: Foreword Esther Freud: During the Contortions Lena Nievers: Backbend and Beyond: An Exploration of the History of a Motif Kerstin Stremmel: Controlled Loss of Control. Jane Avril’ s zest for dancing and other paths of female resistance Paul Verhaeghe: The Illusion of Domination Christina von Braun: Illness in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility Mariama Diagne: From arc en cercle to arc du corps. Otherness in the Grand Arch of Modernist Dance