The MAI museo, Italy's only museum devoted to "irregular" creation, is closing down after a mere fifteen months of activity. Since its creation and opening, this institution, seated in Sospiro/Cremona (northern Italy), has proven highly dynamic in both the high quality of the exhibitions presented and its determination to conserve an "irregular art"  heritage.

Exhibitions, seminars, lectures, exchanges and discoveries combined to enhance appreciation of creations often left behind the scenes or provoking dissent. The institutions' director Bianca Tosatti oversaw it with a strong hand and outstanding conviction, endowing the MAI museo with an extraordinary drive.

For many years acclaimed as a specialist in Art Brut/Outsider Art, upon several occasions Ms. Tosatti has particularly distinguished herself for the numerous exhibitions she has organized in Italy. She has also made a name for herself thanks to various benchmark publications considered essential in the history of Art Brut: notably  "Figure dell'anima" (1998), "Outsider Art in Italia" (2003), "Oltre la ragione" (2006).

 

 

The rest of Italy's Art Brut institutions, as lively and dynamic as they are, are losing a truly invaluable partner; they are thus called upon to strive all the more to further this renegade art across the peninsula: the Osservatorio Outsider Art in Palerma, directed by Eva di Stefano, the OOA [outsider art magazine] published by Glifo Edizioni, the Osservatorio di Verona directed by Daniela Rosi, the Association Costruttori di Babele and various other museums of anthropology and of psychiatry, notably in Turin.