Psychopharmacology reshaped the relationship between art and psychiatry, repositioning the origins of art therapy within evolving clinical practices and discourses on mind-altering drugs. The article traces the use of psychotropic drugs in connection with psychopathology of art in the early twentieth century, then focuses on two post-Second World War experiments with psilocybin by psychiatrist Alfred Bader and pharmacologist Roland Fischer. These examples show how consciousness became central to discussions of mental health, as psychotherapists increasingly framed art brut and modernist aesthetics in neurobiological terms to define madness as a social disease.
Between 1850 and 1950, reports from expeditions to Amazonia described indigenous uses of ayahuasca, which later became entangled with Western scientific and pharmaceutical interest. This history sheds light on current controversies in the "psychedelic renaissance"—a movement that gained scientific attention after 2000 but traces back to research halted by anti-drug policies in the 1960s and 1970s. The article uses actor-network theory to analyze historical reports and argues that this history illuminates ongoing political debates about indigenous classifications, meanings, pharmaceutical interest in ayahuasca, and the broader debate about "drugs."