A tank rolls towards a person who stretches out his arms, wanting to ward off the behemoth made of purple and pink acrylic that is coming ever closer. Joseph Berghammer, 43 years old, painted this picture with powerful colors and clear, simple forms. And anyone who lets the work sink in for a moment senses the threat that the outbreak of war must have posed to the artist. “They can’t speak, but they have a lot to say,” explains art therapist Brigitte Lobisch to the guests at the information evening “Autism – Disability or Strength?”, for which an interested group gathered on the stage in Garching’s community center.
When Lobisch’s listeners step out into the cold autumn night a good hour and a half later – and well entertained by the virtuoso classical and jazz pieces performed by Martin Keller, a young pianist with autism – they have learned a lot: such as the method of assisted painting works, which Lobisch developed and which she has been using in her practice in Gauting for many years. How varied are the manifestations that autism can take. And above all: how much it means to these artists not only to be seen, but also to actually be noticed.
The pianist Martin Keller interprets classical and jazz pieces.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
The exhibition “Painting is Hope”, which can be seen in the community center in Garching until December 23, clearly shows how the 74-year-old art therapist enables people with autism with severe communication disabilities to share their feelings and thoughts with others . The show shows the works of 16 artists. The pictures were created with Lobisch “as a supporter”, as the art therapist calls it, when she holds the autistic person’s hand to give them security in their movements – and to avoid the frustration that arises when the muscles suddenly lose their tension can hold more.
At a special school in the mid-1980s, Lobisch came into contact with autistic children who had no verbal language. She later developed her method of supported painting from the method of so-called supported communication, which comes from Australia and in which the words are created by tapping letters on a wooden board. The supporting therapist offers resistance to the patient’s forearm. This triggers an impulse to overcome it. A voluntary motor movement then finds its target on the letter board.
Brigitte Lobisch developed the supported painting method.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Of course, Lobisch knows that this approach also has to resist the criticism that the therapist can influence what is written or painted. At the end of the lecture, when the guests are allowed to try out for themselves how supported painting feels, Lobisch puts her hand over that of a woman who is keen to experiment and says: “If there was no impulse to move, I would stand like that for half an hour.” Nothing would happen.
But apparently a lot happens in the therapy sessions with Lobisch, as the exhibition in Garching clearly shows: Some of the pictures speak for themselves. The dove with the laurel branch, painted by Michael Krystkowiak, can hardly be interpreted other than the longing for peace. But the fact that the girl with the headscarf, which Okan Kanmaz painted, is a confrontation with the misogynist attitude in Iran, only becomes clear to the viewer after reading the accompanying text. In general: even more than art, which can retain a certain scope for interpretation, it is in many cases language that makes it possible to experience the rich, often highly differentiated inner life of Lobisch’s patients. Frederic Trilk painted a man spreading his arms in front of a bright sun. “My picture shows the peaceful human power of the Ukrainian population. With my good intentions, I help the power of peace to be strong,” he wrote.
The meaning of the pictures is not always immediately recognizable.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
“I never set a topic. It’s always just my open hand as an open offer,” explained Lobisch. Her art therapy, for which the autistic artists come from all over Bavaria and even from the Stuttgart area, lasts just under an hour. The life situation of the autistic finds expression in the pictures and texts, the seizures and compulsions that go hand in hand with an autism spectrum disorder, but also their wishes and hopes.
“The input is fine.”
When Russia attacked Ukraine in February, about half of Lobisch’s patients felt the need to confront the war. You have to keep in mind that the autistic people who don’t speak understand everything. “The input is fine,” says Lobisch. People with autism also see the news, the bombed cities and the atrocities in Bucha. The impressions pour down on them unfiltered, work in them without being able to talk to anyone about them. When people come back to Lobisch a few weeks later, the feelings break through in powerful images and an almost philosophical language that has nothing to do with the banter of banal everyday organization.
Berghammer, who has been painting with Lobisch since 1998, almost stands out with his razor-sharp comments. With the support of her hand, he added the following sentence to his tank picture: “If it were up to me, I would initiate proceedings against Putin for gross, inhuman violations of international law.”