Fiona Tan and the journey into the psyche: the 'Monomania' exhibition at the Rijksmuseum
For the first time in the museum's history, a contemporary artist was invited to curate a major solo exhibition
2' min read
2' min read
It opens with Géricault, but Fiona Tan's (1966) exhibition 'Monomania' at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is not a classical art exhibition: for the first time in the museum's history, a contemporary artist has been invited to curate a large solo show that will occupy the entire Philips Wing. The honour has been bestowed on Fiona Tan, an internationally renowned visual artist and filmmaker, who was born in Indonesia, grew up in Australia and has lived in Amsterdam for many years.
The starting point for Monomania is the birth of psychiatry in the early 19th century, a subject that has long fascinated Tan. For years, the artist has been wondering how the human psyche can be visually represented and how far it is possible to grasp, by observing a face, what goes on in a person's interiority. Guiding his exploration was an emblematic painting: 'Portrait of a Kleptomaniac' (ca. 1822) by Théodore Géricault, part of the series 'Les Monomanes' five surviving portraits of individuals suffering from obsessive fixations. Géricault, like other 19th century artists, was attracted to the limits of the human mind, pushing where psychic distress and visual representation meet.
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250 works
.The exhibition brings together more than 250 works selected from the extremely rich archives of the Rijksmuseum. Paintings, decorative art objects, Japanese masks, christening gowns and everyday artefacts combine in an unprecedented and layered, almost cinematic journey. Among the works on display are masterpieces by Francisco Goya, Edvard Munch, Raden Saleh and many objects that have never been exhibited in recent decades. Tan has not followed a chronological or stylistic criterion: instead, he has traced a thematic thread that interrogates the very concept of "monomania", of normality and otherness, of what is recognised and what appears alien to us.
The highlight of the exhibition is 'Janine's Room' (2025), a new video work by Fiona Tan commissioned by the Rijksmuseum. It is a large immersive installation consisting of three projections: an enveloping environment where reality and imagination gradually merge, leaving the visitor with the feeling that appearances are deceiving. In this mental and visual space, Tan prompts the audience to reflect on what we see, what we think we understand and what remains hidden beneath the surface.
In the words of Taco Dibbits, Director of the museum: "With 'Monomania', Fiona Tan creates a layered exhibition, an associative journey that confronts us with fundamental questions about the psyche and the thin line between recognition and alienation.
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