Institutional Psychotherapy as one of the Fine Arts… (2025) is a new video installation commissioned for Pain’s exhibition at JOAN. The installation is composed of nine screens, each subject to a zealous vacillation of archival footage of waged wars, daily life at experimental hospitals Saint-Alban and La Borde in France, vignettes of Pain’s experimental films, filmed protests, and intimate discussions with celebrated psychoanalysts and psychiatrists of Institutional Psychotherapy Francesc Tosquelles, Jean Oury, and Félix Guattari. 

François Pain (b. 1945) is a filmmaker based in Paris. He is considered a seminal figure in alternative media and psychiatric networks. A founding member of the French post-’68 Free Radio Movement, Pain was an early practitioner of video art in the changing landscape of 1970s handheld video technologies, and a leading film chronicler of experimental clinics of institutional psychotherapy. In 1965 Pain embarked on a residency at La Borde psychiatric clinic. There, he met philosopher and schizoanalyst Félix Guattari, La Borde founder Jean Oury, writer and experimental educator Fernand Deligny, and founding figure of institutional psychotherapy Francesc Tosquelles (who was also Pain’s analyst). Pain would establish lasting friendships and collaborations with these major names in radical psychiatry. Pain’s videos have been released over the years through French TV and featured in various international film festivals including Cannes, Berlinale, and the Graz Festival in Austria. His work has been exhibited or screened at the São Paulo Biennial, Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, and the Palais de Tokyo, Centre Pompidou, and Jeu de Paume in Paris, among others. He has led several media workshops in psychiatric and rehabilitative institutions.

The exhibition is on view until May 17, 2025.