As everybody knows, the at world has always had a close-knit relationship with drugs, even long before art was what we know it to be today. Many artists, in order to stimulate their creation and inspiration, have grabbed all kind of substances to create their works. Mind-altering drug effects make artists open their minds with the purpose of finding new plastic forms.
This phenomenon is more common and known in contemporary art. Great artists such as Modigliani, Manet, Degas, Gauguin, Miró, Andy Warhol, Basquiat or Damien Hirst (below) made their best pieces of work under drugs effects.
A type of drug for each time
Each time has its favourite drug. For example, artists in late 19th- and early 20th-century in France were addicted to absinthe, due to its psychoactive properties. According to the myth, Van Gogh, drunk on absinthe, cut off the lower part of his left ear lobe and handed it to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to “keep this object carefully”.
LSD and other psychedelic drugs were the favourite for Joan Miró, for instance, who used them to induce into hallucinogenic status, in order to create art through revealing the subconscious. Heroine was –and still is- a fetish drug among artists, especially for people like Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Detoxifying in a museum
This matter is interesting and extensive enough for writing a doctoral thesis, but the fact is that my intention is to report on the original initiative carried out by the KW Institute for Contemporary Art of Berlin and the Hotel Marienbad, which offer a drug detox residency for all those with drug dependency problems who are professionally related to the arts. Therapeutic guidance and medical care will be provided also for free. In return, artists must offer some public events (exhibitions, performances, conferences). This project is called ‘Cold Turkey. An Invitation’. Very suitable name…
If you have planned to take a short trip to Berlin in April, visit the museum and see the works of artists that fight to overcome their problems. Book Apartments in Berlin. Your wallet won’t suffer and you‘ll enjoy you stay.
