Kunst oder was?

Art therapy operates on the interface between two systems of concepts and thought: art and psychiatry. This position between two different interpretative approaches constitutes both the potential and the problem of this form of therapy. Are the resulting works art or just material? Do they merit deeper aesthetic evaluation or can they be disposed of when the therapy has ended? This publication explores these unanswered questions on the basis of a previously unknown archive containing several tens of thousands of works from psychiatric hospitals.