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This article puts forward a critique of the notion of “art therapy,” a term that, in our view, is in itself a contradiction. The creative act is subversive and asocial; it has no orthopedic agenda. There can be no mandatory “creative regime” since art is not a hygienic practice aiming to satisfy society's expectations. Whereas the aim of therapy is to help a subject readjust, art stems from a heuristic maladjustment. Art therapy is therefore a contradiction in terms, although it is perfectly true that by extension, as Lacan said about analysis, art can indeed be a path towards a cure—but a cure for what?
Art works with the void: it gives flesh to nothing, a shape to absence. It is a way of coping with the void. It is absence that manifests itself on the surface, giving rise to unexpected forms. These forms try to come close to a real that nonetheless always remains at a distance (“the Real is the impossible,” Lacan says). Attempting to display in the realm of the visible what is missing from it, they put the absence of bodies and the traces of memory on show, tightening the fabric of reality. The creative process transforms internal objects by bringing them into the materiality of the artwork, where the artist deploys figures at times monstrous and disturbing. By exploiting what normally remains in the shadows, the artist brings the angels of the odd (to borrow the title of a recent exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris1) into the light.
In what sense then can art be therapeutic? What does it mean to perform therapy through art? What is this imperative