The Schreber Suite at University Art Museum, Berkeley California, 1989

This installation combined objects that I made with objects culled from the University Art Museum’s permanent collection as part of an examination of and response to Daniel Paul Schreber’s book, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness from 1884. The book is by turns ecstatic and pedantic, being a judge’s legal brief submitted in order to secure his release from the madhouse, as well as a chronicling of his spiritual visions and the his bodily transformation into a woman, in order to bear the children of God.

The Schreber Suite, 1989 at University Art Museum, Berkeley, Installation view
left to right: Schreber Box, Displacement and Rectification, The Compression-of-Head Miracle
The Schreber Suite, 1989 at University Art Museum, Berkeley, Installation view
left to right: Displacement and Rectification, The Compression-of-Head Miracle, Schreber Box, Diagram of the Heavens
Diagram of the Heavens 1989 Glass, steel, 21 x 19′
The Schreber Suite, 1989 at University Art Museum, Berkeley, Installation view
left to right: Selection of works from museum’s collection, Schreber Box, Design for Schreber Throne, Miracled Birds
Schreber Box, 1989 Steel box with sea sponge, cotton cloth, velvet, spear head 19″ x 24″ x 19″
Miracled Birds, 1989 Pigeon Wings, ribbon, gilt frames, wood, press-on letters. Dimensions Variable

This is the Museum’s printed guide and checklist for the exhibition.

MATRIX_125_Nayland_BlakeDownload the printed guide and checklist for the exhibition