Why we are drawn to “hysterical” art.

by Pedro Saúl Life is Tuff (2023) is puzzling. The painting, which depicts a man’s head being crushed by an imposing black boot while searching for gold coins, was Saul’s response to the financial pressure most New Yorkers experienced. Crushed by a symbol of the capitalist system, the figure of Saul is lashed by the faceless powers that be, broken nose and cracked eyes. The work is hard to watch, but then again, unsettling times often make for unsettling art, forcing us to confront the harsh realities of the world instead of hiding behind the aesthetic comfort zone of beauty.

On view across both gallery spaces at Venus Over Manhattan in SoHo, “Retinal Hysteria” is a monumental group exhibition featuring more than 80 disturbing works by more than 40 artists, including Life is Tuff. Curated by Yale art professor (and its former dean) Robert Storr, the exhibit, on view through January 13, 2024, offers a window into how artists cultivate this sense of “hysteria,” a term framed not such as a gender misconception or a psychological misinterpretation. , but as the embodiment of emotional excess. Here, each work explores pain and anxiety through visual tension, using intense colors, frenetic sketches or creepy images.

The exhibition takes as its starting point “Eye Infection”, an exhibition held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2001, for which Storr wrote the critical text. That exhibition, noted for its abrasive approach to contemporary art, featured work by five artists—Saul, Mike Kelley, Robert Crumb, Jim Nutt, and HC Westermann—each with a raw, unfiltered perspective on the world. Westermann once described the current era, which began in the 1960s, as “a world gone mad.”

“‘Hysterical’ art is the effect that art has on the viewer and the way it gets to your nerves, or at least identifies where they are,” Storr said. The exhibition arises out of Storr’s contemplation of the near-universal experience of “cabin fever” during the pandemic, a feeling that was amplified by the international political and social turmoil that followed. A collective sense of being “besieged” and “hysterical,” as Storr describes it, informed the selection process for the exhibition. The show therefore focuses on works that provoke, disturb and challenge us, leaving a lasting impression on its viewers.

“This proves that [Storr] it really brought together our notions of beauty and aesthetics and what’s right and what’s wrong, and there’s kind of an interesting counterpoint to where the art market has been, which also comes at a very challenging time in the world,” Adam Lindemann, Venus. The founder of Over Manhattan, said at a press event.

Here, pieces like Keiichi Tanaami’s epic painting of a sci-fi scene, Fragment of Time (2022), or Steve DiBenedetto’s grotesque abstract portrait, Mental reupholstery (2022–23), portray these excesses through inexplicable movements or deluges of color. Both works evoke an unwavering sense of anxiety through their visual overstimulation. Interested in overdosing on the visual experience, Storr hopes viewers engage with the uncontrollable sensations brought on by the artwork, he said.

These artworks also frequently draw on decades of scathing political critique, directly referencing the anxiety that inspired them. The exhibition includes outstanding pieces such as David Wojnarowicz’s painting Good Morning America, Export News (1984), which portrays a painting of burnt money, a corpse, and a battered face, all framed by a bull’s-eye, a sharp commentary on the violent instability within the U.S. Elsewhere, Wojnarowicz’s 1984 painting. Untitled (Alien Mind), features a glowing red head with a miniature factory on its skull. This politically charged work criticized the industrial complex and its influence on the human psyche, representing the dehumanizing force of industrialization.

Other works in the exhibition challenge conventional visual aesthetics, such as that of Ana Benaroya Your good girl is going bad (2023), a massive painting depicting a muscular female angel whose body is made up of striking red flames. Although it is undoubtedly one of the most attractive paintings in the show, Storr finds a transversal line between the artists and the chronology, bringing together different modes of provocation and anxiety as universal experiences for those who can see. “The stylistic affiliation did not concern me at all,” Storr wrote in his curatorial statement. “Funk, Imagism, Underground Comix, you name it, are temporary labels for the expressive imperatives characteristic of ‘Retinal Hysteria’.”