Sluice Gates of the Mind: The Collaborative Work of Pailthorpe and Mednikoff - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 090198163X ISBN 13: 9780901981639

Publisher: Leeds Museums & Galleries, 1998

Synopsis

Psychoanalyst Dr Grace Pailthorpe wrote that she was searching for a ‘quicker way to the deeper layers of the unconscious than by the long drawn-out couch method’ and in 1935 she found in artist Reuben Mednikoff her collaborator. Within days of meeting at a party, they had embarked on an extraordinary psychological and artistic journey that set about using ‘art as a shortcut to the conscious’. This book charts that journey and their complex involvement with the British Surrealist Group which ended in 1940 with their expulsion from the Group and their departure for the United States. In doing so it sheds new light on the history of Surrealism in Britain and on the nature of their highly charged process of psychoanalytic enquiry, the scientific programme that was at the heart of their artistic project. The primary focus of their research and resulting artwork was the use of paintings and drawings as instruments of deep psychic investigation. The main difference between this and conventional psychoanalysis was that in the latter, the analyst’s neutrality and passivity had an inhibiting effect. They revealed an almost direct connection between artistic expression and unconscious material thus released. The stunning array of images presented in the book contain vivid colours and unique, shocking themes which will certainly prove evocative.

Edition details

• Publisher: Leeds Museums & Galleries
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 090198163X
• ISBN 13: 9780901981639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112
• Editor: Nigel Walsh, Andrew Wilson