Xarxart Premise

A commitment to artistic creation and mental health

The relationship between art, in its forms of painting, sculpture, literature, or music, for example, and mental health is well known. Through artistic expression, people experiencing emotional difficulties or mental health problems can find genuine forms of expression that help channel their distress or suffering, leading to what is known as therapeutic effects. Furthermore, for decades, the relationship between madness, using an elusive concept, and art has yielded significant examples of creativity from individuals with diagnoses considered debilitating. Additionally, there are clear examples of artists who, from their distorted or disturbed lived experiences, have contributed to the exploration of other inspiring realities and have opened pathways for artistic creation from a different perspective.

The Catalan Congress of Mental Health Foundation, from its inclusive vision towards patients and professionals of different sensitivities, maintains the firm purpose of working for the overcoming of the stigma surrounding mental disorder and for a sincere approach to all artistic manifestations arising from people with mental health problems.

This is not the first time the Foundation has launched cultural initiatives, but on this occasion, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, we want to share, in a traveling exhibition, a pictorial display that, through the awards granted at the various conferences organized by the Foundation, validates this purpose or essence of our organization.

We trust that the word accompanying each exhibition will lead us to the sources of very diverse experiences, which in their distant beginnings were tied to the life of asylums, but which currently form part of an artistic current with genuine designation.

We remember psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn at the beginning of the 20th century and his collection, as well as his work “The Art of the Mentally Ill: A Contribution to the Psychology and Psychopathology of Creation”; a work that was revised after the disasters of the 20th-century wars and evidenced the possibility of marginal art uninfluenced by the aesthetic and academic canons of a culture then experienced as failed. This vision contributed the terms “art brut” and “outsider art,” valid to this day.

Josep Vilajoana. President
Ada Ruiz, Vice President