Outsider Art, the Migratory, the Sinister and the Psychopathological Phenomena in the Painting of Martín Ramírez

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to mention some relationships between the function of art, in its therapeutic modality and its functions, in regards to psychopathology ―with the category of the sinister in the background― all this from a psychoanalytical and aesthetic perspective. Specifically in the case of the work of Martin Ramirez, who was a Mexican painter who lived most of his life secluded in psychiatric hospitals in the United States, a confinement that began in the 1930s. Ramirez´s experience refers to the loss of reason from his migrant situation, he is completely deterritorialized, since he never learned to speak english. Thus, his diagnosis ―for some authors― was wrongly made, it was influenced by racism, since in some psychiatric circles migrants were considered as potential carriers of insanity, which endangered the genetic conditions of Americans for future generations. Art, for Ramirez, operates as a tempering device towards biopolitical dynamics of the psychiatric hospital, since with it, he tries to reconstruct a horizon of coherence and meaning towards the psychic (interior) and exterior (phenomenic) realities that have already collapsed. However, art functions as a compensation mechanism against a reality principle that has been diluted, just as, for some authors, psychic compensation mechanisms function, as in the case of psychosis. Thus, a new window opens up for the treatment of psychopathologies, beyond a positive neurobiological pharmacological therapy.