Suicided by Society

Van Gogh did not die from a state of delirium as such, but from having been, in his body, the sphere of a problem in which the iniquitous spirit of this humanity has struggled since the beginning of time.
The problem of the predominance of flesh over spirit, or body over flesh, or spirit over both.
And where in that delirium is a place for the human self?
Van Gogh searched for his throughout his entire life with an exceptional energy and determination, and he did not commit suicide in a fit of madness, in fear of not achieving it, on the contrary, he had just achieved it and discovered what he was and who he was, when the general consciousness of society, in order to punish him for having torn himself from its grip, suicided him.

And that happened with Van Gogh as it always usually happens, during an orgy, a mass, an absolution, or any other rite of consecration, possession, succubation or incubation.
It wormed its way into his body, that society absolved, consecrated, sanctified, and possessed, erased in him the supernatural consciousness he had
just acquired and, like a flood of black crows in the fibres of his internal tree, submerged him with one last jolt,
and, taking his place, killed him.
For it is the anatomical logic of modern man to only have been able to live, or think he could ever live, as one possessed.

Vibrant words from 1947, published after having spent nine years in psychiatric hospitals, by Antonin Artaud. Just like Michel Foucault will do later, the French artist affirms that madness has been created by psychiatric medicine and not the other way around. He accuses doctors and Van Gogh’s brother Theo, to have, not only ignored, but actively suppress the expression of the painter’s art.
The invention of the adjective suicided illustrates exactly the process of psychiatry.

By having elaborated this medicine method, society did not want simply to kill those that it could not assimilate — like it would do for prisoners for example —, but it wanted them to recognize themselves their vision as a pathology and therefore to make them commit a social suicide. And from this perspective, it can be quite simple to recognize the most hypocritical and perverse attitudes of a society that has probably been an instigator since the dawn of time, through its way of isolating the “weakest”/sensitive souls.

Maybe nothing that new, just another stubborn way to reflect on what’s happening to us for ages. A practice that today is attended, unconsciously or not, as a “boomer” practice, perhaps neglecting that once the most sensitive, and conservative, and revolutionary side has committed suicide, everywhere, in the name of “progress”, what remains is probably not so far from committing suicide in turn.

Through his innocent digital Fancy Van Gogh series, Iranian cartoonist Alireza Karimi Moghaddam seems to fully represent Van Gogh’s pure spirit, not corrupted by the lasciviousness, the careerism and the automatisms of society, which for Artaud is the spirit of the pure artist. To Alireza, Van Gogh is not only a famous artist and a genius but a way of life.

“He is not a frustrated and distressed model but a symbol of love, humanity and altruism,” he told Bored Panda. “I understand and propagate his creative ideas from a different perspective, and on the contrary to a prevailing traditional view, I would like a different Van Gogh to be a Van Gogh for everyone.”

In the arms of angels, he found his rest,
Among sunflowers, the painter’s last bequest,
As sunset hues adorned the sky in red,
Van Gogh departed, the painter’s soul, now shed.

Alireza Karimi Moghaddam