SCHREBERISMUS

Daniel Paul Schreber was a German judge who after suffering a nervous breakdown in 1884 was institutionalized, finally being placed in Sonnenstein castle near Dresden.   In his book titled “Memoirs of my Nervous Illness” he tells the reader that he had become the last living human on earth and all of the human forms around him were reanimated corpses, or “fleeting improvised men”.  It was his mission to repopulate the earth.  He would do this concentrating his mental energy on his body, making his breasts expand and hips broaden thereby seducing God who would inseminate him.  Schreber would then give birth to a new race of beings.  Also, befitting the Biblical scope of his mission and his role as a prophet he must become Jewish.  This and many other miracles took place around him, in every part of his body and in distant reaches of the universe.  These drawings are based on some of the miracles Schreber describes.  The medium is ink and spray paint on aluminum.  The quotes accompanying the drawings are from the 1988 edition of the Memoirs from Harvard University Press.

Friese Undine