Untitled 

Adolf Wölfli made this untitled drawing in Switzerland, though it’s impossible to give a precise date. Wölfli spent his adult life in the Waldau psychiatric clinic near Bern. There, he obsessively produced thousands of pages of text and images which became a life-long autobiographical fantasy. Looking at the drawing, we see that Wölfli adopted a dense, all-over style, filling every available space with figures, patterns, and his own invented language. It resembles what art historians have called ‘outsider art’. It is tempting to view this work as wholly personal. But we should consider how the clinical setting in which Wölfli lived and worked shaped his production. The art historical establishment has long excluded those on the margins of society; in recent years, we have looked more carefully at the social and institutional forces at play in defining the very category of ‘art’. To explore this further, you could consult the archives of the Waldau clinic and the writings of other artists who lived and worked in similar institutions.