May 1st through 30th, 2009. NAEMI, the National Art Exhibitions by the Mentally Ill, is presenting their annual exhibition at the Miami Center for the Photographic Arts, located at 1601 SW 1st Street in Miami. The exhibition consists of fifty-seven works by mentally handicapped artists from the US, England, Spain, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. The work selection was done by Juan Martin, an outsider art expert and executive director of NAEMI.
Many of the exhibiting artists are self-taught and they transmit a personal and intense vision of art. With these initiatives, the NAEMI Foundation is looking to educate the public regarding art produced by artists who have or have had mental problems.
As Lyle Rexer, author of the book "How to Look at Outsider Art", elucidate: “Outsider art, those pieces that resist entering into that invisibility by provokingly producing a confusion in our conceptual categories, may act as an incentive for our esthetic conscience”. Look again! It seems to say: Look directly and do not take anything for granted.
National Art Exhibition by the Mentally Ill (NAEMI) is a Florida non-profit organization, which has given art access to mentally ill persons that would have otherwise remained, isolated from the contemporary art realm. NAEMI’s objective is to discover, study, promote, expose and conserve this type of art nationwide.
NAEMI at the Miami Center for the Photographic Arts
1601 SW 1st St
Miami, FL 33135
305.649.9575
www.mcpagallery.com
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