The Open Invitational (until 8 December), a new fair dedicated to works made by artists with disabilities, debuted this week at the Palm Court Event Space in Miami’s Design District.
The fair’s co-founders, the New York-based art dealer David Fierman and the Miami-based arts patron Ross McCalla, met several years ago when the former exhibited at the Outsider Art Fair (OAF) with his Lower East Side gallery, Fierman. Their dialogue deepened when Fierman—who supports The Living Museum, an art studio affiliated with the Queens-based Creedmoor Psychiatric Center—opened a show of paintings by Nyla Isaac, a member of the studio whose work McCalla collects. This past spring, the duo settled on the idea of expanding their support for artists with disabilities by launching a new fair. After the Miami Design District team offered McCalla a venue at no charge, the pair compiled a list of exhibitors through a referral process.
The fair’s 11 participating studios and non-profits were given booths of equal sizes at no cost, and the fair is not charging commissions on sales. They hail from New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Detroit. Miami’s own 2bnonprofit is participating, as is the Oakland-based Creative Growth.
Fierman says some of the exhibitors have previously shown at the OAF, but that the term “outsider” does not fully capture the scope of the artists in the Open Invitational. “The rubric for outsider is mainly self-taught, which is not necessarily the rubric with the artists we show,” Fierman says. He sees Miami as an ideal place to launch the fair, since there is no local edition of the OAF to compete with.
Fierman hopes to “create a much more human-centred, compassionate environment than a typical fair model and figure out how to break the barriers to create some momentum around this type of work”.
The Open Invitational, until 8 December, Palm Court Event Space, 140 NE 39th Street, 3rd floor, Miami
