Leading articles

THE VIENNA PSYCHOANALYST wants to give not only already internationally established psychoanalysts, but also still unknown psychoanalysts the opportunity to post a self-written and not yet published article on the FrontPage of our online magazine!

Our Users then can leave comments, ask questions or discuss the articles in our forum. Our aim is to provide an international platform where for the first time anyone interested in psychoanalysis can exchange ideas on certain topics.
Articles are welcome in German and/ or English.

If you are interested, please send your article to
leadingarticle@theviennapsychoanalyst.at


(For reasons of readability, the male form is used with personal names, however the female form is also always intended.)

In our interview series "in conversation with“, we will briefly present the authors of the leading articles. We want to give our users the opportunity to read the leading article from a different point of view.


This week we are very glad to welcome Nicholas Fox Weber from Connecticut, U.S.A.:

EDUCATION:
1969-71 Yale University, New Haven, CT M.A., Art History; Fellowship in American Art
1965-69 Columbia College, New York, NY B.A., major in art history
1961-65 Loomis School, Windsor, CT Cum Laude
PROFESSIONAL:
1983 to present Director, Josef Albers Stiftung, Bottrop, Germany
1976 to present Executive Director, The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, CT
1979 summer: Lecturer, 20th Century Art, New School for Social Research, New York
1971-76 President, Fox Charts, Inc., Hartford, CT 
1974 Guest lecturer, 20th Century Painting and Sculpture, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
1973 Guest lecturer, Collecting Contemporary Art, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
1970-71 Graduate teaching assistant, Yale University, New Haven, CT
CURATOR OF EXHIBITIONS (extract):
2015 A Beautiful Confluence: Anni and Josef Albers and the Latin American World, Museo delle Culture, Milan
2014 Albers/Miro: Ardor de la Mirada/The Thrill of Seeing, Fundacío Pilar I Joan Miró, Palma, Majorca
2013 Josef Albers: Spirituality and Rigor, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia
2012 Josef Albers: The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, Ireland, Cork

DWP: What led you to deal with psychoanalysis, respectively with Freud and his achievements?

Nicholas Fox Weber: My topic, which I came to by chance, is Freud’s trip to Orvieto. In the book I wrote about this, I explain why the subject has such personal significance to me, and what the particular elements were that led me to want to pursue the subject. I am sure that having undergone a traditional Freudian analysis myself, for about seven years, four days a week when the doctor and I were not traveling (as agreed in advance,) and, since concluding it about twenty-five years ago, having had a lot of opportunity to consider its immense benefits and surprising limitations, I was drawn to anything with the name Freud on it. He is, for many of us, one of the individuals of the modern era who has had the greatest impact. I know, for example, that on my first trip to Vienna, made for other reasons, I headed quickly to Bergasse 19. When, some 18 years ago, our younger daughter turned 16, she wanted to go to Freud’s house in London—my wife and I were delighted. Freud, I will admit, is a sort of cult figure for many of us.


DWP: Have you ever undergone psychoanalysis?

Nicholas Fox Weber: Answered above. The doctor was Albert J. Solnit. I think that I have the right to give his name, even if he did not have the right to give mine: what a power trip!


DWP: If you had the opportunity to talk with Sigmund Freud, what would be the topic?

Nicholas Fox Weber: Judaism, all sorts of sexual issues, and medication. I would insist that he answer. I have no interest in discussing those subjects with him and have him say “Yes, I see,” or “Tell me more,” or react with silence. I would insist: “Talk, Dr. Freud. And tell me the truth. Free-associate, please. Let down your veneer.”


DWP: Fabric or leather couch?

Nicholas Fox Weber: Irrelevant. I would like to get to the point where I did not notice.


DWP: According to Bruno Bettelheim and the importance of fairy tales in childhood. Will you tell us your favorite fairy tale? And do you see parallels to your own adult life?

Nicholas Fox Weber: I don’t think I was read fairy tales; I do not remember ever liking any, in any case. I have a letter from Bettelheim that he wrote me, though, when I was writing my book on Babar the elephant. My favorite stories were about boys being kidnapped.


DWP: I dream, …

Nicholas Fox Weber: About a range of subjects, and I totally think that no one else can interpret your dreams; if they are really the golden road to the unconscious, and they are, you have to go further with them yourself.


DWP: What do you find good or particularly good in psychoanalysis and is there anything you do not like about it?

Nicholas Fox Weber: It expands the mind marvelously; it really pushes you to go deep and face tough truths; it opens you to honesty about yourself, and to new depths, ideally, about other people. What I don’t like is that it really solves nothing.


DWP: Do you have a favorite Freud - quote?

Nicholas Fox Weber: “the greatest I have ever seen” – about the paintings whose artist’s name he could not remember.


DWP:  Are there other psychoanalysts, in addition to Sigmund Freud, who you like to study?

Nicholas Fox Weber: My own – Dr. Solnit – and maybe Brill and Zilboorg, but for personal reasons, and Richard Karpe. (I would love any information about Richard.)


Thank you very much for this conversation, we are already looking forward to your leading article!

PUBLICATIONS:
Books:
2017 Freud´s Trip to Orvieto
2011 The Bauhaus Group. Six Masters of Modernism (Yale University Press, London)
2009 The Bauhaus Group. Six Masters of Modernism (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York)
2009 C´Etait Le Corbusier, (Editions Fayard, Paris)                                                                          
2008 Le Corbusier: A Life (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York)
2007 The Clarks of Cooperstown (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York)
2004 Marc Klionsky (co-author with John Russell and Elie Wiesel), (Hudson Hills Press, Vermont)
2002 Balthus, (Editions Fayard, Paris)
1999 Balthus (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York; Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London).
1998 Cleve Gray (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)
1992 Patron Saints, (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.) Awarded the L. L. Winship Book Award from The Boston Globe, softcover edition, 1995 (Yale University Press)
1989 The Art of Babar, (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.) French and Italian editions published 1990, 2nd English language edition, 1990, softcover edition, 1995
1988 Warren Brandt (Hudson Hills Press)
1988 Leland Bell (Hudson Hills Press)
Louisa Matthiasdottir: The Small Paintings, co-author, (Hudson Hills Press)
1984 The Drawings of Josef Albers (Yale University Press), German edition, 1988 (Josef Albers Museum)
Essays in Books and Exhibition Catalogues (extract):
2017 “The Paintings of Claudio Mosele,” Ricordi d’Infanzia: Claudio Mosele
2016 “Two Artistic Pairings: Albers and Zwirner, Midnight and Noon,” Midnight and Noon, David Zwirner Gallery, New York and London
“The Chance to Eat with Them,” L’Esprit du Bauhaus, Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris
Preface, One and One Is Four: The Bauhaus Photographs of Josef Albers, MOMA, New York
2015 “The Pleasure of Craving the Bounties of American Life,” Wayne Thiebaud, Rizzoli
“A Beautiful Confluence,” A Beautiful Confluence: Anni and Josef Albers and the Latin American World, Museo delle Culture, Milan, Italy
Foreword, Richard Gorman: KAN, ASSAB ONE, Milan, Italy
2014 “Albers and Miró in Majorca,” Ardor de la Mirada: The Thrill of Seeing,” Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró a Mallorca, Mallorca, Spain
“When I first Met Josef Albers…,” Josef Albers: Process and Printmaking (1916-1976), Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain
“Minimal Means, Maximum Effect,” Josef Albers: Minimal Means, Maximum Effect,” Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain
2013“Mimosa, a Tapestry by Henri Matisse: The Triumph of Form”, Matisse: la couleur découpée, Musée Matisse le Cateau-Cambrésis, France
Foreword, Interaction of Color, 50th Anniversary Edition, Yale University Press
“Juppi in Perugia,” Spirituality and Rigor, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia, Italy
Foreword, Art as Experience: The Teaching Methods of a Bauhaus Master, Città di Castello, Italy
“Baladus, Rilke and Balthus: Looking Through the Window,” A Window on the World, Museo d’Arte Lugano, Switzerland
“Ruth Asawa and Anni and Josef Albers: Splendid Soulmates,” Ruth Asawa: Objects & Apparitions, Christie’s, New York
Magazine and Newspaper Articles (extract):
2017
March “Josef Albers: Art to Open Eyes,” adapted from the preface of One and One is Four: The Bauhaus Photocollages of Josef Albers, published by MOMA, New York Review of Books, March 31
2016
December “Turner’s Classics,” review of “The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner” by Franny Moyle, New York Times Book Review, December 4
Summer “The Archives Corner: When Our Gallery Rivaled the Met: The Exhibition of Paintings from Stephen Clark’s Collection,” The Century Association
2015     
October “Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry’ by Paul Goldberger,” New York Times Book Review, October 23, 2015
July “Le Corbusier, un personnage complexe qui prête à la polémique,” Le Monde, July 22
June “Everyone Needs Everything,” Harvard Design Magazine, Spring/Summer issue
March “A Model T,” Town & Country
January “Buying Charlie Hebdo in Paris,” Townandcountrymag.com
LECTURES (extract):
2017     
Judd Foundation, New York (“A Good Chair Is a Good Chair,” May 18)
Bollate Prison, Milan Italy  (“Ways of Seeing Women,” May 13)
DMA Partners, Amsterdam, Netherlands (May 3)
Imperial College Healthcare Charity, London (“Art in Hospitals,” April 24)
Bollate Prison, Milan Italy (“Violence Toward Women,” March 23)
Publicolor at MOMA, (“Josef Albers Photographs,” February 28)
Antoni Malinowski’s Class at David Zwirner Gallery, London (“Sunny Side Up,” February 22)
Yale University Art Gallery (“An Evening of Albers: Conversations on Small-Great Objects,” February 2)
Home Haven Book Group at the Yale University Art Gallery (“Van Gogh’s Night Café,” February 2)
Bollate Prison, Milan, Italy (“Female Archetypes,” January 16)
David Zwirner Gallery, London (“Sunny Side Up,” January 13)
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, (“L’Esprit de Bauhaus,” January 5 and 25)
2016     
Bollate Prison, Milan, Italy (“Women in Art,” November 29)
Architectural Association, London, Saturated Space VIII, Colour Strategies Symposium, November 11
David Zwirner Gallery, New York (“Josef Albers Walkthrough with Nicholas Fox Weber,” November 3)
The Glass House, New Canaan, CT (“Toshiko Mori and Nicholas Weber,” October 27)
2015
Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland (“Anni Albers: A Glorious Pioneer,” August 30)
Center for Italian Modern Art, New York, NY (“Alfred Barr and Josef Albers,” April 23)
Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio (“The Life of the Bauhaus,” April 21)
2014     
Harvard, Boston, Massachusetts (“Josef Albers: Minimum Means, Maximum Effect,” November 18)
Global Brands Group, New York (“Inside the Bauhaus,” October 16)
The Society Club, London, (“Balthus,” September 30)
Tate Liverpool, England, (“Mondrian the Man,” June 27)
IDEO, San Francisco, California (“Inside the Bauhaus: A Friend to the Last Living Bauhaus Masters Presents Their Ideals and Their Lives”)
2013     
Bollate Prison, Milan, Italy (“Josef Albers” in October, “Anni Albers,” December)
Einar Granum School of Art, Oslo, Norway (“Interaction of Color”)
Pratt Institute (“Publicolor”)
West Cork Literary Festival, Ireland (“Masters of Deception: The Biographer’s Encounters with Myths, Lies, Beauty and Genius”)