This original artwork by Brooklyn-based artist Friese Undine is titled: “Therefore ‘scorpions’ were repeatedly put into my head…which were to carry out some work of destruction in my head. These had the nature of souls and therefore were talking beings…” Page 209. “… although it may sound paradoxical, it is justifiable to apply the saying of the crusaders in the first crusade to myself: Dieu le veut (God wishes it).” Page 165. “… the advent of the bellowing-miracle when… I am forced to emit bellowing noises…”

This work is part of the SCHREBERISMUS series, on which more below.

The piece measures 16 1/4 inches by 14 1/4 inches framed and consists of ink and enamel on aluminum. Select framed or unframed from the options below.

About the SCHREBERISMUS series: Daniel Paul Schreber was a German judge who, after suffering a nervous breakdown in 1883, was institutionalized at the Psychiatric hospital of Leipzig University. In 1894 the director of the hospital, Paul Flechsig transferred Schreber to Sonnenstein Castle near Dresden.

In his book titled Memoirs of my Nervous Illness, published in 1903, Schreber 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 quotes accompanying the drawings are from the 1988 edition of the Memoirs from Harvard University Press.

Friese Undine (1965, Los Angeles) is a Brooklyn-based artist interested in psychology, primatology, human evolution, history, politics, cannibalism, and cabinets of curiosity.

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