The Cut in Creation: Exploring the Avant-Garde, Dada, Surrealism, Modern Art, Noise Music, and Performance Art through a Psychoanalytic Lens, Led by Vanessa Sinclair, PsyD, Begins May 25
Four-week class taught online via Zoom
Sundays, May 25 - June 15, 2025
1-3 pm ET (NYC Time)
$ 125 Paid Patreon Members/ $145 General Admission
Please note: All classes will be recorded for those unable to attend live
In this course, psychoanalyst and artist Dr. Vanessa Sinclair will examine a strain of avant-garde artists spanning more than a century, beginning at the dawn of photography and culminating in the discussion of contemporary artists. Drawing on the theories of a variety of psychoanalysts, including Freud, Lacan and Laplanche, the course will explore the long and rich relationship between psychoanalysis and the fine arts – from painting and music to poetry, collage, photography, film, and performance art, including the use technology and body modification to explore aspects of identity, gender and sexuality. Through immersion in the work of these artists and psychoanalytic ideas, participants will walk away with a better understanding of the transformative process inherent of the act of creation itself, especially when used as a powerful disruption of narrative, and hopefully feel inspired themselves to create!
The first section, “Sowing Seeds/Setting the Stage,” will outline events facilitating the zeitgeist in which both psychoanalysis and the avant-garde as we know it first emerged. The advent of photography – and later film – created a huge cultural shift and provided perspectives never before gleaned. Artistic movements such as symbolism, impressionism, expressionism, and fauvism paved the way for the century to come. Specific artists to be discussed will include William Morris, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin, Charles Baudelaire, Egon Schiele, Henri Matisse, and Hilma af Klint.
The second part, “Unleashing the Unconscious,” will discuss the years leading up to the First World War when psychoanalysis and burgeoning avant-garde art movements – including cubism, futurism, dada, and noise music – began to take hold. Many artists and intellectuals fled their homelands in search of safety, congregating in neutral Switzerland and soon forming the Cabaret Voltaire. Innovations in performance art, poetry, literature, music, collage, photomontage, assemblage, and readymades continue to influence contemporary artists to this day. Specific artists include Emmy Hennings, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hannah Höch, John Heartfield, and Marcel Duchamp, as well as Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Nurse With Wound, and John Zorn.
The third part, “Revolution of Mind,” will begin with a look at surrealism, which had a great impact on the early writing of Jacques Lacan. We’ll discuss certain artists who played with the concept of the double, which will then lead into a discussion of experimental film, followed by an exploration of various characters and happenings of the Beat Generation. Specific artists include Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Breton, Georges Bataille, Pierre Molinier, Hans Bellmer, Unica Zürn, Maya Deren, Harry Smith, Orson Welles, Kenneth Anger, Robert Frank, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Derek Jarman, Brion Gysin, and William Burroughs.
The fourth and final section, “When Art Becomes Life (and Death),” will focus on the birth of pop, performance and street art, actions and happenings, bringing artwork outside the walls of the gallery, as well as from the streets into the art world. As the persona and lifestyle of the artist became the focus – rather than exclusively the works of art produced – life and art began to merge. Many performance art collectives experimented with alternative forms of living, communal spaces, and artist communities. Performance art also took the form of body modification, exploring sexuality, gender, and identity through the physical medium of the self. To conclude, we’ll move into the uncanny, technology, morbidity, death, and transformation. Artists include Yoko Ono, Marina Abramović, Ana Mendieta, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Breyer P-Orridge, Carl Abrahamsson, Annie Bandez, Val Denham, Kurt Schwitters, Joel-Peter Witkin, Francis Bacon, Joe Coleman, CRASS, and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY).
Dr. Vanessa Sinclair is an artist and psychoanalyst based in Sweden, who works with people internationally. She is the host of Rendering Unconscious podcast. Her most recent book is The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond (Routledge, 2025) co-edited with Elisabeth Punzi and Myriam Sauer.
Images: Still from Un Chien Andalou (1929), directed by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel; Hilma af Klint, No. 113, Group III, The Parsifal Series, 1916
Four-week class taught online via Zoom
Sundays, May 25 - June 15, 2025
1-3 pm ET (NYC Time)
$ 125 Paid Patreon Members/ $145 General Admission
Please note: All classes will be recorded for those unable to attend live
In this course, psychoanalyst and artist Dr. Vanessa Sinclair will examine a strain of avant-garde artists spanning more than a century, beginning at the dawn of photography and culminating in the discussion of contemporary artists. Drawing on the theories of a variety of psychoanalysts, including Freud, Lacan and Laplanche, the course will explore the long and rich relationship between psychoanalysis and the fine arts – from painting and music to poetry, collage, photography, film, and performance art, including the use technology and body modification to explore aspects of identity, gender and sexuality. Through immersion in the work of these artists and psychoanalytic ideas, participants will walk away with a better understanding of the transformative process inherent of the act of creation itself, especially when used as a powerful disruption of narrative, and hopefully feel inspired themselves to create!
The first section, “Sowing Seeds/Setting the Stage,” will outline events facilitating the zeitgeist in which both psychoanalysis and the avant-garde as we know it first emerged. The advent of photography – and later film – created a huge cultural shift and provided perspectives never before gleaned. Artistic movements such as symbolism, impressionism, expressionism, and fauvism paved the way for the century to come. Specific artists to be discussed will include William Morris, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin, Charles Baudelaire, Egon Schiele, Henri Matisse, and Hilma af Klint.
The second part, “Unleashing the Unconscious,” will discuss the years leading up to the First World War when psychoanalysis and burgeoning avant-garde art movements – including cubism, futurism, dada, and noise music – began to take hold. Many artists and intellectuals fled their homelands in search of safety, congregating in neutral Switzerland and soon forming the Cabaret Voltaire. Innovations in performance art, poetry, literature, music, collage, photomontage, assemblage, and readymades continue to influence contemporary artists to this day. Specific artists include Emmy Hennings, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hannah Höch, John Heartfield, and Marcel Duchamp, as well as Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Nurse With Wound, and John Zorn.
The third part, “Revolution of Mind,” will begin with a look at surrealism, which had a great impact on the early writing of Jacques Lacan. We’ll discuss certain artists who played with the concept of the double, which will then lead into a discussion of experimental film, followed by an exploration of various characters and happenings of the Beat Generation. Specific artists include Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Breton, Georges Bataille, Pierre Molinier, Hans Bellmer, Unica Zürn, Maya Deren, Harry Smith, Orson Welles, Kenneth Anger, Robert Frank, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Derek Jarman, Brion Gysin, and William Burroughs.
The fourth and final section, “When Art Becomes Life (and Death),” will focus on the birth of pop, performance and street art, actions and happenings, bringing artwork outside the walls of the gallery, as well as from the streets into the art world. As the persona and lifestyle of the artist became the focus – rather than exclusively the works of art produced – life and art began to merge. Many performance art collectives experimented with alternative forms of living, communal spaces, and artist communities. Performance art also took the form of body modification, exploring sexuality, gender, and identity through the physical medium of the self. To conclude, we’ll move into the uncanny, technology, morbidity, death, and transformation. Artists include Yoko Ono, Marina Abramović, Ana Mendieta, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Breyer P-Orridge, Carl Abrahamsson, Annie Bandez, Val Denham, Kurt Schwitters, Joel-Peter Witkin, Francis Bacon, Joe Coleman, CRASS, and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY).
Dr. Vanessa Sinclair is an artist and psychoanalyst based in Sweden, who works with people internationally. She is the host of Rendering Unconscious podcast. Her most recent book is The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond (Routledge, 2025) co-edited with Elisabeth Punzi and Myriam Sauer.
Images: Still from Un Chien Andalou (1929), directed by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel; Hilma af Klint, No. 113, Group III, The Parsifal Series, 1916
Four-week class taught online via Zoom
Sundays, May 25 - June 15, 2025
1-3 pm ET (NYC Time)
$ 125 Paid Patreon Members/ $145 General Admission
Please note: All classes will be recorded for those unable to attend live
In this course, psychoanalyst and artist Dr. Vanessa Sinclair will examine a strain of avant-garde artists spanning more than a century, beginning at the dawn of photography and culminating in the discussion of contemporary artists. Drawing on the theories of a variety of psychoanalysts, including Freud, Lacan and Laplanche, the course will explore the long and rich relationship between psychoanalysis and the fine arts – from painting and music to poetry, collage, photography, film, and performance art, including the use technology and body modification to explore aspects of identity, gender and sexuality. Through immersion in the work of these artists and psychoanalytic ideas, participants will walk away with a better understanding of the transformative process inherent of the act of creation itself, especially when used as a powerful disruption of narrative, and hopefully feel inspired themselves to create!
The first section, “Sowing Seeds/Setting the Stage,” will outline events facilitating the zeitgeist in which both psychoanalysis and the avant-garde as we know it first emerged. The advent of photography – and later film – created a huge cultural shift and provided perspectives never before gleaned. Artistic movements such as symbolism, impressionism, expressionism, and fauvism paved the way for the century to come. Specific artists to be discussed will include William Morris, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin, Charles Baudelaire, Egon Schiele, Henri Matisse, and Hilma af Klint.
The second part, “Unleashing the Unconscious,” will discuss the years leading up to the First World War when psychoanalysis and burgeoning avant-garde art movements – including cubism, futurism, dada, and noise music – began to take hold. Many artists and intellectuals fled their homelands in search of safety, congregating in neutral Switzerland and soon forming the Cabaret Voltaire. Innovations in performance art, poetry, literature, music, collage, photomontage, assemblage, and readymades continue to influence contemporary artists to this day. Specific artists include Emmy Hennings, Hugo Ball, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Hannah Höch, John Heartfield, and Marcel Duchamp, as well as Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Nurse With Wound, and John Zorn.
The third part, “Revolution of Mind,” will begin with a look at surrealism, which had a great impact on the early writing of Jacques Lacan. We’ll discuss certain artists who played with the concept of the double, which will then lead into a discussion of experimental film, followed by an exploration of various characters and happenings of the Beat Generation. Specific artists include Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, André Breton, Georges Bataille, Pierre Molinier, Hans Bellmer, Unica Zürn, Maya Deren, Harry Smith, Orson Welles, Kenneth Anger, Robert Frank, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Derek Jarman, Brion Gysin, and William Burroughs.
The fourth and final section, “When Art Becomes Life (and Death),” will focus on the birth of pop, performance and street art, actions and happenings, bringing artwork outside the walls of the gallery, as well as from the streets into the art world. As the persona and lifestyle of the artist became the focus – rather than exclusively the works of art produced – life and art began to merge. Many performance art collectives experimented with alternative forms of living, communal spaces, and artist communities. Performance art also took the form of body modification, exploring sexuality, gender, and identity through the physical medium of the self. To conclude, we’ll move into the uncanny, technology, morbidity, death, and transformation. Artists include Yoko Ono, Marina Abramović, Ana Mendieta, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Breyer P-Orridge, Carl Abrahamsson, Annie Bandez, Val Denham, Kurt Schwitters, Joel-Peter Witkin, Francis Bacon, Joe Coleman, CRASS, and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY).
Dr. Vanessa Sinclair is an artist and psychoanalyst based in Sweden, who works with people internationally. She is the host of Rendering Unconscious podcast. Her most recent book is The Queerness of Psychoanalysis: From Freud and Lacan to Laplanche and Beyond (Routledge, 2025) co-edited with Elisabeth Punzi and Myriam Sauer.
Images: Still from Un Chien Andalou (1929), directed by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel; Hilma af Klint, No. 113, Group III, The Parsifal Series, 1916