Freud, Berggasse 19
Originally preserved spatial structures reveal an authentic experience of the birthplace of psychoanalysis, and the various exhibits (objects, historical manuscripts, photographs) highlight the professional stations and biographical facettes of Freud’s professional and family life. Special printings, rare first editions, offprints, and presentation copies provide insights into the geneses of Freud’s theoretical work. Foreign-language (first) editions in Hungarian, Swedish, Hebrew, or Japanese, furthermore eloquently testify to the extent of the international dissemination of the psychoanalytical movement during Freud’s time.
This layer of information is in many ways closely connected to the history of each respective room: the practice of psychoanalysis and the so-called “talking cure” is addressed with the help of case histories and texts in Freud’s former treatment room. Doing so refers to the former use of the room and brings it into the present. In this vein, the spot where the psychoanalytical couch once stood remains empty. Monika Pessler explains why the museum deliberately avoided reconstructing the original room: “This void, which has existed in Freud’s treatment room since his flight from the National Socialist regime, clearly represents the dark side of history. To reconstruct a ‘world of yesterday’ (Stefan Zweig) within these rooms – i.e. a world before the March 1938 Anschluss (annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany), as if Freud’s forced exile in London never happened – would be to negate a significant part of Freud’s history and, in doing so, negate ours.”
Anna Freud’s adjacent living and practice rooms are dedicated to her work of combining psychoanalysis and pedagogy, which she performed together with her partner Dorothy Burlingham in Vienna and, after their emigration, in London. Several personal artifacts on display have been loaned from the Freud Museum London including Anna Freud’s laterna magica (magic lantern).
Following the exhibition concept, the private rooms of the Freud family are dedicated to Freud’s life as a family father and his career path as a young physician and neurologist. Objects such as hospital documents and medicinal instruments, as well as travel toiletry kits, gifts to his future wife Martha, and other personal objects provide the viewer with information on Freud’s family life, and according to Daniela Finzi, “set into motion imaginations, associations, and narratives.” Texts and manuscripts from the estate of the Freud family will be presented to the public for the first time in these rooms. Freud’s former bedroom is dedicated to the topic of The Interpretation of Dreams – listening stations furthermore provide an auditory experience of Sigmund Freud’s dreams. Original pieces of furniture have found their way into the exhibition for the first time including a dresser on permanent loan from the Freud Museum London which, along with its accompanying intarsia table, makes up part of the original, historical ensemble of the Herrenzimmer (gentlemen’s salon).
Concept and Design: Atelier Czech/Hermann Czech and Gerhard Flora
Curators: Sigmund Freud Museum/Monika Pessler and Daniela Finzi
Exhibition assistance: Johanna Frei and Nora Haas
Consulting Prined items: Arkadi Blatow
Lenders: Bibliothèque Charcot, Arkadi Blatow, Freud Museum London, Matthew Freud, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung, Familie Toncar
Editing exhibition texts: Hermann Czech, Daniela Finzi, Gerhard Flora, Johanna Frei and Monika Pessler
Translations: Elise Feiersinger (wall texts) and Brita Pohl (showcase texts)
Lectorate german: Eva Fröhlich
Lectorate english: Maria Slater
Graphic design wall texts: Michael Neubacher
Graphic design showcases: Martha Stutteregger
Restoration and restorator's reports: Claudia Riff and Fabia Podgorschek
Book restoration: Mirjam Bazán Castaneda
Furniture restoration: Gerald Ratheyser
Photo restoration: Andreas Gruber
Showcase construction: ARTEX Museum Services
Light management: Zumtobel Licht AG
Installations: Stefan Flunger
Olaf Nicolai: Trauer und Melancholie (Mourning and Melancholia)
Olaf Nicolai's work "Trauer und Melancholie" (Mourning and Melancholia) was presented in the Sigmund Freud Museum's "Library of Psychoanalysis" on the 82nd anniversary of Sigmund Freud's death. With his artistic documentation (2009/12), Nicolai made possible the first translation of Freud's eponymous writing from German into Arabic. In addition to the presentation of the publications (de/en), his concept also includes the presentation of the text as a radio play, which was produced by the radio station Amwaj 91.5 FM in 2009 and broadcast as a reading lasting several hours as part of the Ramallah Biennial.
As an integral part of the installation, film recordings of the preparatory conversation between the radio speaker and the translator Mohammad Abu-Zaid convey the complexity of this undertaking, which is due not least to the differences between the respective (language) cultures. Thus, the artistic translation performance not only "speaks" insights into various states of mourning in the literal sense, but above all places interpersonal dialogue at the center of consideration - that is, the procedure that is just as inscribed in psychoanalysis as it is in humanitarian attempts to clarify and resolve the Middle East conflict.
The work is accessible upon request.
Made possible by the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts.
Ermöglicht durch die Gesellschaft der Freunde der bildenden Künste.
The exhibition ORGANIZED ESCAPE – SURVIVAL IN EXILE. VIENNESE PSYCHOANALYSIS 1938 AND BEYOND, which opens on November 12, 2021, will portray the fates of the – mostly Jewish – psychoanalysts who had to leave Vienna after the “Anschluss”, the annexation of Austria into National Socialist Germany. Due to the efforts of the international psychoanalytic community, most members and candidates of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung, WPV) were able to flee. A particularity of this escape is the fact that emigration was organized collectively, and was successful but for a few exceptions. The members who had thus escaped being murdered substantially contributed to the further development and global dissemination of psychoanalysis in their new home countries.
The Organized Escape
In close consultation with Anna Freud, it was in particular the British psychoanalyst Ernest Jones who resolutely and persistently orchestrated the systematic rescue operation from London. In fact, all Viennese psychoanalysts under threat had managed to flee Vienna by spring 1939. Sigmund Freud had left the city by train with all his family on June 4, 1938, settling in London, where he died in September 1939. Not a single one of the emigrated WPV members was to return permanently to Vienna after the war.
Documents, Maps, Lists
The exhibition allows visitors to trace escape routes and shows bureaucratic and organizational efforts by presenting selected biographies, correspondences, historical documents and maps. The most important testimony to this organized escape is a list with names and annotations that Ernest Jones compiled in 1938. Audio and video interviews provide personal insights.
From Individual Historical Fates to Current Refugee Movements
On the basis of selected individual fates of members who fled Vienna, the exhibition illustrates the development of psychoanalysis in exile and its continued life in Vienna after the WPV was reestablished in 1946. The exhibition thus allows for a differentiated approach to questions that are still relevant today, regarding antisemitism and xenophobia as well as current refugee movements.
Digital and Analogue Exhibition
Exhibition contents will not only be presented in the museum in Berggasse 19, but will also be available at www.freud-museum.at.
Curators of the exhibition were Daniela Finzi and Monika Pessler (Sigmund Freud Museum) in cooperation with the “Working Group on the History of Psychoanalysis“ (Thomas Aichhorn, Georg Augusta, Eva Kohout, Roman Krivanek, Nadja Pakesch, Alix Paulus and Katharina Seifert), which was initiated by the two International Psychoanalytic Association member institutions based in Vienna – the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (WPV) and the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association (WAP).
ORGANIZED ESCAPE – SURVIVAL IN EXILE
VIENNESE PSYCHOANALYSIS 1938 AND BEYOND
Special exhibition at the Sigmund Freud Museum
November 12, 2021 to April 30, 2022
Supported by
Stadt Wien – MA 7
Nationalfonds der Republik Österreich für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (National Fund)
Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies
Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich
Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung
Freund:innen des Sigmund Freud Museums
American Friends of the Sigmund Freud Museum
Lenders
Privatarchiv Thomas Aichhorn
Scans and Materials:
Austen Riggs Center
Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
British Psychoanalytic Society
Columbia University Libraries
Freud Museum London
KHM Museumsverband
Library of Congress
The National Archives
New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung
Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv
