The exhibition will feature 110 recent works from art therapy workshops in Austria and an additional 50 from the collection of the Psychiatry Museum of Budapest. A series of drawings by Count Ernő Teleki, from the National Gallery's collection, will also go on display. The Transylvanian aristocrat Teleki spent 20 years keeping a virtual diary while living in terrible conditions on the Danube delta.
The term art brut was coined by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside of the generally accepted boundaries of art culture. Dubuffet focussed particularly on art by psychiatric patients.
The pictures look like children's drawings only at first glance. Then they reveal themselves: the lack of form, the outrageous colours, the lack of perspective and the different viewpoints show something spontaneous, with no touchups or refinements.
