Honoring artists with intellectual disabilities

Last week, the Italian city of Turin held many activities to welcome athletes and artists with intellectual disabilities from more than 100 countries and territories to participate in sports competitions and display works of art.

Alongside the sports competitions is a festival celebrating creativity and inclusion for people with disabilities. Among them, an exhibition called When Attitudes Take Form highlights the talents of 13 artists with intellectual disabilities.

The Eisenberg family (living in the US) has long supported artists with disabilities. The family has a daughter named Jesse, who also had intellectual problems about 20 years ago, so they began collecting and introducing works by artists with similar circumstances. Over time, they have built a special collection of this art genre. In addition, the family also actively promotes and donates works to large organizations. Works by artists with disabilities in this exhibition are also displayed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the New York Museum of Modern Art and many other prestigious museums.

The artists featured in the exhibition have a variety of intellectual and developmental disabilities, including autism, schizophrenia and cognitive impairment. Each expresses their own sense of the world through their art. American artist Dan Miller, who has difficulty communicating, has a work of letters, words, names and numbers stacked on top of each other that at first glance appears chaotic but is striking, reminiscent of the style of Jackson Pollock.

Scottish artist Nnena Kalu similarly relies on repetition and layering in her work. Since 1999, she has been a member of ActionSpace, a London-based organization that supports artists with learning disabilities. Her large-scale installations have received international recognition. Kalu often creates paintings in pairs, complementing and reflecting each other.

The work of William Scott, an autistic and schizophrenic artist from California (USA), is also extremely vivid. Scott is an architect who works at Creative Growth, one of the oldest and largest arts centers for people with disabilities in the world. His art is deeply rooted in his own life, with paintings depicting family members and parishioners, actors, musicians and civil rights leaders. In much of his work, he envisions an ideal San Francisco, neighborhoods, buildings and community centers with new architecture. New York artist Derrick Alexis Coard (USA), who has schizoaffective disorder, uses his paintings to explore themes of black masculinity, spirituality and faith.

Despite the undeniable talent of these artists, disabled people are still undervalued in the art world. A 2023 report by the British Council found that 48% of European art institutions exhibit the work of disabled artists at least once a year, while 23% never do so. The exhibition, When Attitudes Take Form, runs until April 27, and aims to change perceptions and bring deserved recognition to artists with intellectual disabilities.

KHANH MINH