Dr. Ernesto Mujica was inspired to share his experience following a visit in February 2024 to the Museo del Prado and seeing the exhibit, “Reversos”. According to him, “There were two very unique aspects to this exhibit: one being that the curator is an artist himself – rather than an art historian – as would most typically be for an exhibit of this nature. The curator, Miguel Angel Blanco, noted that the museum had provided him with the “poetic license for subjectivity and imagination” to be an integral part of this project. The second unique feature was the focus on an exploration of the reverse side of paintings.”
Dr. Mujica was struck by the kindred spirit between the project of “Reversos” and our work as psychoanalysts, a project entrenched in curiosity and fascination with the relationship between what is portrayed and what is hidden, what is initially offered as ‘real’ and what has led to its creation, its context and its history. Some of the topics to be discussed in his presentation concern the self-portrait of the artist as it is revealed by the back side of a painting and the ‘unseen’ as a field for experimentation and subjective expression. Clinical vignettes will be discussed which highlight contrasts between how the therapist initially perceives and imagines the patient and what is consequently revealed.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ernesto Mujica, PhD, is Director of the Sexual Abuse Study Group and Service at WAWI, where he also serves as an Associate Editor of the institute’s journal, Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Dr. Mujica is a supervisor of psychotherapy at WAWI, and at the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology of Teachers College, Columbia University. He integrates his clinical work in the areas of childhood and adult trauma, as well as sociocultural factors in mental health, with his strong interest in the arts. His previous talks within the WAWI Artists Study Group have included discussions of artists El Anatsui (Ghana & Nigeria), Kent Monkman (First Nations-Cree, Canada), and Yayoi Kusama (Japan).
Frances V. Dillon, MSW, and Eric Dammann, PhD, are Co-Directors of the Artist Study Group.