Artpaper. #15 by Artpaper

S P OT L I G H T The case of the artistic chicken and its egg and their respective IQ’s

E X H I B IT ION The Gropius Bau in Berlin is dedicating a major retrospective to Yayoi Kusama

ARCH IT ECT U RE Review and highlights from the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021

No:15

+ E R I C A G I U S TA

View of ‘Maison Fiber’, at the Arsenale. Photo by Erica Giusta

VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2021

Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Installation view “A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe”, 2021, Gropius Bau. © Photo: Luca Girardini. >> pg.22

€2.00 WHERE SOLD

A traditional opening of the 17th Architecture Biennale seemed improbable right up until a few days before the (stereo) typically glamorous crowd of architects, artists, journalists, and curators arrived in Venice – as they would every May in pre-pandemic times. The city was once again teeming with life and activity. >> Review, pg.26

ANN DINGLI

Gozo in Isolation

FEATURE Konrad Buhagiar looks at the destructive impact of man’s intervention in the natural world EXHIBITION Antje Liemann creates an imagined world where humans cease to exist INTERVIEW DESIGN fuse, a community-driven art project opens in Valletta A new art space opens in Floriana NEWS Victor Agius selected for the 61st edition of the Premio Faenza in Italy + Investing in new artistic PERFORMANCE Conceptual artist Charlene Galea at Marie Gallery5 successes in Cameroon EVENTS Highlights in Malta and around the globe DIRECTORY A list of creative services in Malta

The unpredictable events of 2020 led artists Sebastian Tanti Burlò and Lydia Cecil to a flat in Xaghra. Here, they set up a studio overlooking Marsalforn valley, producing works directly inspired by the island of Gozo. Ann Dingli meets them in London to discuss their time on the island. >> Review, pg.17

Welcome / Team / Inside June - October 2021

Editor Lily Agius (+356) 9929 2488 Graphic Designer Nicholas Cutajar Sales Manager Lily Agius (+356) 9929 2488 Printing Press Print It Contributors Victor Agius Konrad Buhagiar Glen Calleja Joanna Delia Ann Dingli Charlene Galea Maria Galea Erica Giusta Bruce Micallef Eynaud Margerita Pulé Gabriele Spiller Elyse Tonna Julien Vinet Christine Xuereb Seidu Artpaper is owned / produced by Lily Agius and Chris Psaila [ V ] Publications

he creative energy that has been bubbling during the months of lockdown and its forced solitude just couldn’t stay contained any longer. This once again proves the resilience and dedication of those involved in the arts, as well as the importance of connecting through art and design.

In Malta, we have finally been able to enjoy well produced exhibitions and performances and start to connect again. Despite the thirst for culture events, it has also been a brave attempt by the artists, museums and galleries, to express themselves without the possibility of opening to the public as planned, in case of another lockdown. Let’s hope the exhibitions continue and more artists feel the confidence again to create and put their work in show. Inside this issue, Ann Dingli meets artists Lydia Cecil and Sebastian Tanti Burlò in London to talk about their work painted during lockdown in Gozo, which is being exhibited at Arthall in Gozo this autumn (page 17); a community-driven art project opens in Valletta at The Design Cluster (page 6); and during a time when the need for nature has never been so prominent, Antje Liemann will create an imagined world without humans at . her exhibition at MUZA in Valletta this August (page 12).

reviews the retrospective for Yayoi Kusama in Berlin; Christine Xuereb Seidu explores the artistic success in Cameroon (page 30); whilst architect Konrad Buhagiar looks at the destructive impact of man’s intervention in the natural world (page 32); and Joanna Delia discusses how it is the IQ of the Maltese authorities who don’t know the importance and economic relevance of the arts, and how this should be questioned and not the other way around (page 20). As we close another issue and look forward to the summer season, our team would like to express solidarity with the arts community in their call for greater parity around restriction easing for mass cultural events. Currently, it has been announced that mass cultural events can only be attended by 100 people, with proof of vaccination. Weddings are allowed 300 people, no mention of vaccination. This seems considerably unbalanced. Arts and cultural events are conducive to a healthy, diverse society and should be lifted and supported by the powers that be – encouraged through safe and reasonable means to bring audiences back to the places they love. Instead, it feels as though they are being singled out and penalised. We hope things will change. Until they do – we offer moral support to any creative or cultural endeavour that is trying to bring people back to life through art.

Architect Erica Giusta visits the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021 and shares the event’s highlights (page 26); Gabrielle Spiller

Supported by AP Valletta ArtHall Gozo Arts Council Malta Artz ID Edwards Lowell Fimbank

SPOTLIGHT

ART + DESIGN NEWS

20. FEATURE How art creates business and enriches a country’s culture

05. PHOTOGRAPHY Matt Thompson to unveil his most recent work in Valletta

30. AFRICA Investing in new artistic successes in Cameroon

06. DESIGN fuse, a community-driven art project opens in Valletta

32. DEVELOPMENT Konrad Buhagiar looks at the destructive impact of man’s intervention in the natural world

09. ITALY Victor Agius selected for the 61st edition of the Premio Faenza in Italy

REVIEWS

EXHIBITIONS + EVENTS

22. EXHIBITION Major retrospective for Yayoi Kusama in Berlin

09. PERFORMANCE Conceptual artist Charlene Galea presents a solo at Marie Gallery5

26. ARCHITECTURE Erica Giusta visits the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021

36. EVENTS Highlights around the globe

Heritage Malta La Bottega Art Bistro Lily Agius Gallery Malta Society of Arts Malta Tourism Authority Ministry for National Heritage, the Arts & Local Governance

38. EVENTS Highlights in Malta

. MUZA National Gallery People & Skin Sistina Art Shop Spazju Kreattiv Valletta Contemporary Vee Gee Bee Art Shop

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INTERVIEWS 12. EXHIBITION by Antje Liemann creates an imagined world where humans cease to exist 15. Q&A A new art space opens soon in Floriana 17. EXHIBITION Ann Dingli meets artists Lydia Cecil and Sebastian Tanti Burlò in their London studio

DIRECTORY 35. LOCALIST A list of creative services in Malta

Competition:

Go Figure! by Bruce Eynaud Can you guess the 3 artworks that make up this figure? Send your answers by email to info@artpaper.press by 19 July 2021, with ‘Competition’ as the subject, for a chance to win: First Prize: A pass to all Heritage Malta sites Second Prize: €20 voucher from VeeGeeBee Art Shop Third Prize: €20 voucher from Sistina Art Shop

Re-opening soon!

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15 R

Art News / On the Scene June - October 2021

.21

ON the SCENE. “If we must dump concrete, let it be Art!” Konrad Buhagiar

REVIEWS

FEATURE

INTERVIEW / Q&A

DESIGN

ART SALES

SPOTLIGHT

COMMENT / OPINION

ART NEWS

ARCHITECTURE

Sacred Rubbings / Out Of Bounds As people, we declare something as ‘sacred’ if we care about it. Whether through the assistance of faith, or adapting our lives to a spiritual journey, the answers lie at the heart of us... The exhibition that explored this reality, Sacred Rubbings by Mario Cassar, has now moved to Gozo to re-propose a new meaning, one that calls attention to our perception of the term ‘sacred’. Cassar’s philosophical attribution to his works makes us question this term as we are faced with a new reality, where we now have to visit the exhibition online.

Banksy – A Visual Protest The world’s most famous street artist, whose identity remains unknown, will have works exhibited in Finland for the first time at Art Museum Gösta until the 10th of October, in collaboration with 24 Ore Cultura of Milan. The exhibition A Visual Protest includes over a hundred works borrowed from various collections with many of the artist’s early works. Curated by Gianni Mercurio, this is not an official Banksy exhibition, nor has it been authorised by the artist himself. 15 May — 10 October 2021

Instagram: @mariocassar75 Facebook: https://fb.me/e/1mS1MTCoG

Photography exhibition, Passivation, by Matt Thompson to be unveiled British photographer Matt Thompson will unveil his most recent series of work entitled Passivation at Studio 87 in Valletta, Malta, between the 8th and 17th of October. In this unique selection of photographs, Thompson references the process of passivation. This is where a bronze material exposed to the environment undergoes a series of chemical reactions, which gives it a pale green outer layer – a patina – that serves to strengthen and preserve. At first glance, the viewer is presented with what appear to be passivized statues. However, Thompson has photographed real-life subjects and has applied a green patina with digital techniques and a meticulous eye. As Thompson explains, “the transformation of each figure speaks of strength, where the body is shaped by life, its challenges and its experiences, becoming a positive metaphor for a process that reinforces, not diminishes us”.

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Art News / New Space / Valletta June - October 2021 MALTA

the most, or which resurfaced from one conversation to the next. Ritual, Synergy, Displacement, Intersection, Symbiosis, Resilience, Conviviality, Transaction and Familiarity. Although seemingly broad and vague, each term encapsulates varied meanings and connotations associated with the social, cultural, environmental, geographical, political and cultural aspects of the place, and their signiﬁcant overlaps. Carnival. Bakers. Gentriﬁcation. Plants. Neglect. Transformation. Hope. Tourists. The past, the present, the future, the unknown, the personal, the public.

Photos by Elisa von Brockdorff

What is fuse? Fuse is a community-driven and context-speciﬁc artistic project focusing .. on the Biccerija area, now known as the Valletta Design Cluster, and its surroundings. Its primary scope has been to discover the communities that have a relationship to the area, to uncover their stories, to facilitate interactions and ultimately develop a project that has art, community and context at its core. These objectives set the groundwork for this two-year project and steered it in a direction that has remained true to its primary values: breaking boundaries between art and non-art communities, inclusion, safeguarding of living heritage, creative placemaking and sustainability. The result is a collection of eight contemporary art interventions, each based on a unique curatorial thematic. Each intervention unlocks and builds on collective group identities. It exposes traits, characteristics, traditions and typologies, uncovering what makes .. the Biccerija community and context unique. Communities + context + art: the process Back in 2019, the Valletta Cultural Agency and the Valletta Design Cluster shortlisted a series of curators to pitch a community-engaged project for the .. Biccerija area. Having proposed a process-based curatorial concept, I wanted fuse to be based on an adaptable approach that was sensitive and non-invasive to the communities and context our team would eventually interact with.

fuse E LY S E T O N N A

Seesaw by Aaron Bezzina

To set its direction, the project would unfold across six main phases: a research phase, a data collection phase, selection of themes, selection of artists, artistic production and exhibition, and outreach. All the phases would be equally important and interdependent to the process as a whole, collectively dictating the development of the project. What are the inherent group identities of the communities which have .. a relationship to the Biccerija area? Linked to social and anthropological frameworks, such as social identity theory and identity fusion, the research and curatorial processes for fuse were entirely based on an informal storytelling approach. Little is known about the .. Biccerija area, little has ever been written. There was no other better source of information than the communities themselves. The selection of themes was based on aspects which mattered Hagar Karmel by Victor Agius

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As ideas developed, the project became more inclined towards creative placemaking – it became more evident that the works had to be located in public space. Once the artists were selected on the basis of theoretical concepts, several distinct processes started to unfold. Assimilation of each artist/artist collective to a theme, introduction of the artists to the communities and context, setting up of workshops, rehearsals and prototypes; the community observed, the pandemic disrupted, the works were taking shape, questions were being asked - the project was fusing. They were curious, they were intrigued, their stories came to life. Even whilst setting up the works, a constant facilitating process was employed. As an ongoing point of reference present in all the conversations throughout the project, I created links between their personal stories and the work that was being set up – they observed and they listened. The team, the artists, the communities became a synchronised, interwoven system joining together to create a project that was not only about the community, the context, ourselves and every other component in between, but about us altogether. “Whether they will stay or leave will depend on how much they will fuse”. Even less than a week after the works were set-up, the communities’ feedback, actions and response were incredibly overwhelming. The residents explained the works to tourists and strangers, the artworks were being maintained, requests were coming in for the works to become more permanent. This brings us to the materialisation of essential elements related to fuse, that of cultivating a sense of ownership and appropriation, reinforcing a sense of community and integrity whilst maintaining the identity

ELYSE TONNA is a curator and cultural manager with a background in Cultural Heritage Management (MA) and Architecture (BE&A). Her curatorial practice is primarily related to contemporary art practice, site/context-specific art and community-driven projects.

of an area so important to the development of the social and cultural dimension of Valletta. Their differences were blurred – everyone became a part of a process, their stories became signiﬁcant, they were heard.

Refraction by Giola Cassar and Aprille Zammit

They came together in celebration of their culture, by ﬁnding and sharing their dreams, by collaborating, respecting, understanding and realising that this was not only about us, that it was about them. We became a part of their community – it is now home. The interventions can be seen in the surroundings of the Valletta Design Cluster until the 16th of July 2021. fuse is a project created and curated by Elyse Tonna and produced by the Valletta Cultural Agency. The artists involved in this project include Victor Agius, Aaron Bezzina, Giola Cassar

and Aprille Zammit, Samuel Ciantar, Tom van Malderen, Laura Besancon, Text Catalogue (Ella Fleri Soler and Andrew Darmanin) and Andrea Zerafa and Chakib Zidi, Noah Fabri and Fatima AM.

More information can be found on the Valletta Cultural Agency website: https://www.vca.gov.mt/en/blog/fuse

Ix-Xuwa by Text Catalogue and Andrea Zerafa

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News /Performance Art / Malta June - October 2021

CHARLENE GALEA This experimental artist employs the body as both instrument and subject, and through her work, navigates between online identity and physical experience.

MALTA

Dopamine Loopholes Conceptual artist Charlene Galea, whose body often navigates between online identity and physical experiences, presents a solo performance where clothes act as a metaphor to narrate how the body is experienced within contemporary times.

alea shares and expresses her latest research on the effects social media has had on her artistic and personal life, whereby she disconnects completely from all social media platforms for two months. The exhibition narrates her offline experience, thoughts and conclusions gained through this period through a performative and visual context.

Through this body of work, Galea strives to share her feelings in a physical, not digital, space, by also questioning if artists should move away from social media and find a way to promote and save themselves on their own. What matters most to Galea is having control of her own creative space. This exhibition brings a sense of realisation of this through handwritten statements, video performance, and a pinch of humour.

Galea describes that most artists, like herself, fear that their work would go unnoticed and unacknowledged unless displayed on social media. However, artists and curators do not realise that social media affects every piece of their work once published. Through the two months she has spent offline, she has also been researching how her emotions were free from habitual posting and scrolling. She continues to describe the algorithm as a control master that chooses which and who’s work to be seen, no matter how intellectual, professional or original the artwork is. She concludes that algorithms are designed to favour selfies and saturated images with a ‘sell me’ hashtag. They punish and reward with likes or no recognition unless it traps users into one of its ‘dopamine loopholes’, keeper users constantly online, almost addicted to the screen.

Dopamine Loopholes will run until the 24th of June at Marie Gallery5, 9th April Street, Mosta, Monday 4pm - 7pm, Tuesday to Friday 10:00am - 12.30pm & 4pm - 7pm, Saturday 10am - 12.30pm. Only 7 visitors can view at a time due to COVID-19 restrictions. Masks must be worn indoors and contact tracing details left on arrival.

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News /International June - October 2021 ITALY

VICTOR AGIUS selected for the 61st edition of the prestigious Premio Faenza in Italy

ictor Agius’s ceramic installation was recently selected to be one of the 58 shortlisted entries – out of 538 international submissions from 62 nations – in the prestigious international award Premio Faenza, organised by The International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy. Since 1938, Premio Faenza Biennale has been showcasing international ceramic sculptures by contemporary artists such as Lucio Fontana, Leoncillo Leonardi, Fausto Melotti, Angelo Biancini, Pietro Melandri, Carlo Zauli, Eduard Chapallaz and Sueharu Fukami, amongst others. The final exhibition at the museum was originally planned to happen in 2020, but due to the pandemic was held virtually between January and March 2021 accompanied by weekly live artist-curators talks on the official Museum’s YouTube channel. Victor Agius selected work, EARTH RITUALS, is an installation made from glazed stoneware ceramics, terrarossa assemblage, concrete bricks, documentation stills on screen, and sound. This immersive work measures 180x180x140cm and deals with humanity’s relationship with mother earth. Victor Agius’s works have an intimate connection with earth, committed to present it in its pure form. His research stems from his ecological experience and his

manic gesture puts the primordial matter of terrarossa and clay in confrontation with cement and concrete the symbols of the modern world, exposes our fragile existence in the Anthropocene. The catalogue published for this Biennale also featured a happening that Agius performed in July 2020 with earth, terrarossa and his body during . the partial Covid-19 lockdown at Ggantija Temples in Gozo, with the support of Heritage Malta, The Gabriel Caruana Foundation, Elyse Tonna and photographer Daniel Cilia.

EARTH RITUALS, PREMIO FAENZA by Victor Agius. Photo by Daniel Cilia

archaeological approach around formless matter. Agius lives and works just a few metres away from the pre-historic sites of . Ggantija Temples and the Xaghra Stone Circle (c.3,600 B.C.) on the Mediterranean island of Gozo, Malta. He roams the island like a nomad documenting its rituals and collecting clay and earth from excavations made continuously by construction companies. His local

familiar landscape is treated as his materia prima to elicit universal existential themes. The circle of terrarossa from which the formless, organic ceramic sculptures rise, speak of the cyclic rituality of birth, life, death and regeneration. The crude materiality of clay – the product of geological time alludes to how we are both part of nature and its consumer. This immersive installation, whose sha-

An illustrated catalogue published by Gli Ori titled 61 Premio Faenza Biennale Internazionale della Ceramica d’Arte Contemporanea – special edition features the majority of the shortlisted artists and their works including the works of Victor Agius. It is edited by the Museum Director, Dr Claudia Casali, with essays by Prof. Judith Schwartz – New York University, MIC guest curator Dr Irene Biolchini, contemporary art curator Frederic Bodet, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art of Milan, Alberto Salvadori, and Director of European Ceramic Workcentre in the Netherlands Ranti Tjan. Amongst the other participating international artists in this edition, were names like Corvi-Mora Tommaso (Italy), Aguilera Lester Sofía (United Kingdom), Zhu Binji (China), Loredana Longo (Italy) and Alessandro Neretti (Italy).

MALTA

Assouline – The Ultimate Collection Assouline’s Ultimate Collection is an homage to the art of luxury bookmaking. Hand-bound using traditional techniques, with colour plates hand-tipped on art-quality paper, each page of this limited-edition series bears the unique imprint of the artisan. Treating a range of topics from jewellery and fashion, to fine art and the ‘Impossible Collections,’ the Ultimate Collection curates culture from around the world and across the ages. Nestled in linen clamshell presentation cases, these books attract collectors, lovers of the printed page, and those who devour the culture of our time. Signalling a new

level of sophistication for true connoisseurs, these unique books are works of art in their own right. The Impossible Collection Curated by specialists – collectors, curators, and industry leaders – the Impossible Collection is the epitome of Assouline. These limited editions collate some of the world’s most highly sought-after objects as seen through the eyes of experts. Hand bound and elegantly presented in linen cases on art-quality paper, these books are the essence of Assouline’s luxurious sophistication. www.elcol.com/shop/brand/assouline/

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Interview /Exhibition / Malta June - October 2021 MALTA

EILEEN FSADNI

LIGHT IS TIME THINKING ABOUT ITSELF Interview with Antje Liemann

he early stages of the global pandemic saw streets empty of people. As countries went into varying degrees of lockdowns – which aimed to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus – people were forced to seek shelter indoors. While our mortality as a human race was brought to the forefront, a little spark of light emerged, as reports of nature returning to abandoned cities were shared. We witnessed a collective enthusiasm – even from audiences who typically neglect the environment.

evening classes to pursue her passion. She eventually decided to take a risk, describing how, “in 2002, I quit my job and decided to study art in Dresden”. “Dresden,” explains Liemann, “is home of the Romantics”. It is here where Caspar David Friedrich captured her attention. He moved to the German

German artist, Antje Liemann, took inspiration from the re-emergence of nature observed during the initial weeks of quarantine. Without humans, nature took .hold. Her exhibition, on show at MUZA, Light Is Time Thinking About Itself, curated by Margerita Pulé, creates an imagined world where humans cease to exist. She questions what nature would look like in our absence. The title of the exhibition is a quote drawn from the poem, Sight and Touch, by Mexican writer, Octavio Paz. I met with Liemann in her Birgu studio, a communal space shared with other artists and creatives. It is here where Margerita and herself met, connecting over their shared interest in the environment. She settled in Malta three years ago – seeking a place in the sun – where she is now a full-time artist. Her background is in economics, favouring a more traditional route to the start of her professional life. She tells me, “I worked in the field for 7 years”. Nevertheless, Liemann persevered with her artistic ambitions and attended

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Photos by Elisa Von Brockdorff

city at the end of the 18th century and his work is still found in several museums. Friedrich is best known for his captivating views of natural landscapes. His work is united by the theme that humans have little control over nature. Liemann says, “he is painting light, nature and the relationship of humans with nature”.

Liemann’s exhibition pulls from the Romantic tradition and presents these concepts within a 21st century context. She firmly places the climate crisis at the forefront, imagining what could happen when human-impact is removed from the natural world. Our presence is only hinted at through ruins, such as Mnjadra, in her paintings. The ruin is overshadowed by largerthan-life orchids in the foreground of the painting, representing the dominance of nature over humankind. The work is complemented by a sound installation produced in collaboration with Letta Shtohryn, who recorded the prehistoric stones using a contact microphone. Although the message of Liemann’s work is integral to the exhibition, she says that, “for me, painting is like making a sound”. When she is producing work, she forgets form, for a moment, and analyses how one colour communicates with another, saying, “the painting as a whole is like an orchestra”. Found objects displayed on a central table, recalling the concept of a wun-

EILEEN FSADNI was educated in Belgium, Australia, The Netherlands and Malta. She holds an M.A. in History of Art, and works at Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti. She also volunteers at Friends of the Earth Malta, contributing articles to their newsletter.

derkammer create contrast between nature and the human-made. Collected from various flea markets, she explains, revolve around how she “started to think about time, and started to collect clocks”. The clocks highlight the little time that humans have occupied the earth. Liemann points out that if you were to look at the earth on a 24-hour clock, humans have only existed for a few seconds. A mere blip in the universe, but our impact is irreversible. Liemann underscores that, “We now see ourselves as the centre of the earth, but we are not”. She adds, “we are part of an ecosystem that works together. Without plants we cannot survive. We cannot eat, we cannot breathe”. Liemann’s work is firmly based in research. Zoom interviews with locals who have an interest in the environment will be played on loop in the background of the exhibition. The digital format of communication has become synonymous with the current pandemic era. Ultimately, she hopes that her exhibition will serve as ‘a wakeup call’, to care for our earth and our livelihoods. While her world is imagined, she believes, that in the distant future humans will most certainly disappear. But Liemann worries that “if we are not aware of what is happening, then it will accelerate the process”. The exhibition will run from 13 August until 5 September . 2021 at the Community Space, MUZA – The Mal-

ta National Community Art Museum in Valletta. A series of workshops will be held to engage with the public and continue the conversation about what a world without humans could look like. The exhibition is supported by Arts Council Malta’s Project Support Grant, and the Embassy of German in Malta.

Everything for the artist!

Sistina Art Shop 8 AMERY STREET, SLIEMA (near Scotts Supermarket) Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm & Saturdays 9.30am to 1.30pm Parking available opposite the shop (in front of blue garage)

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Final Logo

Interview /New Art Space / Floriana June - October 2021 MALTA

GREEN SHUTTERS ART-SPACE A pop-up art space has opened in Floriana with a group show by four artists, curated by Nicholas Grixti of Kixxot. Why this space? Julien Vinet: Green Shutters Bar is an iconic building in Floriana that is appreciated by the locals and full of character. Now closed for some years, the new space symbolises the need to new breathe life into all the empty places around us, changing with a view to redesign a troubled paradigm. It also brings us to those who are not accustomed to exposure to contemporary art and that may help us redraw the art world in Malta after the pandemic. Green Shutters Bar’s first show, Ruinenlust, is a site-specific art show that aims at starting a conversation. A conversation between our artworks and the walls of the space, and also a conversation between us the artists and the residents of Floriana. Who are the artists exhibiting? Nicholas Grixti: An eclectic mix of printmakers and visual artists all of whom bring a fiery, sensual sensibility to their work. These sensibilities are what unify the artists in the exploration of the exhibition’s core concept: Madeleine Fenwick (@madeleine_fenwick), Arnaud Griggio (https://www.facebook. com/arnaud.griggio), Zvezdan Rejlic (https://zvezdanreljic.com/), and Julien Vinet (http://www.julienvinet.com/). What is the concept behind the show? Nicholas Grixti: This exhibition is the first of its kind here in Malta and it will pop-up at Green Shutters Art Space, located in Floriana. The location, once a bar, provides us with the opportunity to at once reach out to the community as well as help restart art related events in the aftermath of the global pandemic. A concept born of our international collaborations, Ruinenlust celebrates the space it calls home and reintroduces it again to the public with an eclectic mix of site-specific-work by the artists. The works are all intended to fit within the space itself, augmenting what is already there rather than as an exercise of impo-

sition. The exhibition meditates on the many dilapidated spaces strewn across our island and proposes that even in ruin one may also find beauty. What expectations and hopes do you have for the show and this artspace? Julien Vinet: This show is the first one of its kind to be done at Green Shutters

Bar – a space provided by Lily Agius Gallery – but the idea is to welcome other shows, international artists and art residencies. Creating an art hub in a local vibrant neighbourhood to help develop the awareness of art is one of our many goals to achieve in this new adventure and this show should kickstart this movement.

The Opening of Green Shutters is Thursday 24th June, from 6pm to 9pm. The exhibition will remain open until the 24th July. You can follow Green Shutters on Facebook and Instagram for updates or contact Lily Agius Gallery.

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Interview /Exhibtion / Malta June - October 2021

ANN DINGLI is an art and design writer with an MA in Design Criticism from the University of the Arts, London. She has worked as a freelance writer and content consultant for four years, writing remotely from London, New York and Malta since 2016. (anndingli.com)

A FLAT OF ONE’S OWN: ANN DINGLI

Two artists paint Gozo in isolation

The unpredictable events of 2020 led artists Sebastian Tanti Burlò and Lydia Cecil to a flat in Xaghra. Here they set up a studio overlooking Marsalforn valley, producing works directly inspired by the island of Gozo. Ann Dingli meets them in London to discuss their time on the island.

“W

e got all our vegetables and fruit from an organic farmer who grew everything very close by. That suddenly became a really important part of our day – that massive, beautiful delivery of gorgeous fruit and vegetables.” Sustenance through lockdown came in different formats for different people. Artists Lydia Cecil and Sebastian Tanti Burlò found theirs in work – painting their life as they created distance between themselves and the world they knew pre-lockdown. When the pandemic hit, Burlò and Cecil moved to Gozo, far away from the speed and diversity of their typical roaming lives (they met in Florence, Cecil lived briefly in Samoa, Burlò in Barcelona and back to .. Siggiewi, both now find a common home in London). “I was definitely meant to be back in London at the time,” Cecil recounts, recalling the evasive maneuvers she and Burlò navigated as a bi-national couple in the pandemic. “We just weren’t really sure of anything – whether [Seb] was going to move to London, or what. So we moved to Gozo. That was the end of September [2020], so Covid was already in full swing”. “We moved into a flat in Xaghra,” Burlò adds, “and then we were alone. Gozo was very quiet during those months, even more so than it usually is. It was a different pandemic experience. We got everything we needed – the weather was spectacular, we went on long bike rides, we ate outside”. The scene they set invites art historical allusions, recalling archetypal episodes of two artists holing themselves up in remote, picturesque homes to paint and study the choreography and texture of everyday life. Many of those through history were set in contexts of plight; wars, industrial wreckage, political oppression – the pandemic backstory to Cecil and Burlò’s hermitic escape could well be evaluated by successors with similar gravitas. What Cecil and Burlò created while in Gozo are visual records of a silent island land. Their paintings do not touch the pandemic. They record faces, the clothes on their neighbours’ bodies, trees,

Il-Laring ta’ Leon, Sebastian Tanti Burlò, oil on canvas, 2020

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Interview /Exhibtion / Malta June - October 2021 MALTA Continued

Tell me, Lydia Cecil, oil on canvas, 2020

Man of Xaghra, Lydia Cecil, oil on canvas, 2020

windmills, birds, donkeys, prickly pears, quiet roads, and blue skies. They exult the attributes of a slower paced life. They present work that – in very different ways – brings honour to subjects that represent something bigger than them. In the way that Jean-François Millet’s Gleaners go about their daily labour, ignorant of their status as ambassadors of the poor. Or how his field workers, slumbering in repose in Noonday Rest, lie in shallow sleep, their working-class dignity held in their sunburnt skin and soil-stained work clothes. In a strangely similar way, Cecil and Burlò’s work does the same thing. It doesn’t speak of the anxieties of the pandemic. It is not concerned with the physicality of the virus’s impact, save for a face mask pulled below the folded pink chin of a Gozitan woman. Their work instead focuses wholly on Gozo. “As painters, you’re just influenced by what is around you,” Cecil explains. “The characters in the streets, the landscape…”. “You feel like you’re in an imagined scenario,” Burlò continues. “You encounter a donkey or a goat – it catches you off guard”. Both artists are accustomed to drawing and painting from life. Cecil studied at the London Atelier of Representational Art (LARA) for three years, a school known for its meticulous, traditional training, where students spend their first year only drawing in pencil, graduating eventually to just two tones, and finally to paint. She considers working from life to be central to her practice, which predominantly explores expression in portraiture, plein air painting and still life compositions. Burlò’s training is also steeped in observation. He is a political cartoonist and artist, and holds a degree in Architecture and Urban Studies from the University of Westminster in London. For years he has drawn, painted and created work in ink around current affairs, crying foul on both the macro and micro scales of political and social immoralities. Ann Dingli interviews artists Lydia Cecil and Sebastian Tanti Burlò in their London studio. Photo by Mark Leonard.

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In Gozo, they both strayed slightly from their typical methodologies. Cecil took up her camera, and painted her subjects later from snapshots she took in the streets. Burlò swapped his pen for brush and oils. Both had some adjustments to make. Cecil to the bright Mediterrenean light, manifesting in deeply contrasted shadows on faces, clothes, arms, and legs. Burlò to a slower kind of commentary to his usual output (he creates weekly political cartoons for the Sunday Times of Malta). Together, they sacrificed their artistic comfort zones to create both real and imagined scenes of the life that surrounded them. As they reminisce, they frequently return to the subject of food, and the role it played in their Gozitan life. Cecil fondly recounts how they “got to know the person who was growing our vegetables, he would let us know what was available. They were beautiful vegetables – you just wanted to paint them. The oranges were in the season and glorious. They were just coming in. And I couldn’t eat them until [Seb] had painted them! But the truth is, we got to concentrate more on these kinds of things, and maybe it wasn’t even just about food. It was about being conscious about things in your entire existence, your entire life.” “It kind of reflects the way that we’ve had to press pause on our social and cultural lives,” Burlò adds. “We have to take things slower even as we carry on, even as we reopen. We have to take things slower. Because otherwise all bets are off”. The joy and lightness in their scenes of everyday emblems is underscored by social commentary. With both artists, the analysis occurs in different modes and at different speeds. With Cecil, the stillness of her subjects, each caught in transitory moments, compels the viewer to contemplate on the legacy of Gozo’s traditional life – whether it will persist with time, or disappear with the people that represent it. With Burlò, the critique is also subtle, and far less overt than his typical work. The barrel of a gun takes up only a tiny portion of a canvas dedicated to a noble blue bird. Cars and cranes appear at a great distance in wider landscape scenes. But they are all still there. “There are about five construction sites next to each other, just on the street we were living,” recounts Burlò, the conversation inevitably concluding with a question on Gozo’s fate. “There was a feeling that the valley that we were living in was slowly being encroached on from both sides. And this is one of the only very beautiful green spaces left. Hunters would wake us up at five in the morning with gunshots. You could hear the pallets raining down, trucks reversing, causing damage everywhere”.

R.T.O. Liba, Sebastian Tanti Burlò, oil on canvas, 2020

Ultimately, the sentiments that Cecil and Burlò take away from their time in Gozo are connected with peace, awe and respect for the elemental. Their work from this time reflects that connectedness. In different ways, their paintings possess the same live-giving experience as that first bite into a fresh local orange, harnessed and sold just miles away. Its sweetness has provenance, its form meaning and lineage. It returns you to harmony with the world you hope will never change. 64a, Flat 1, an exhibition by Lydia Cecil and Sebastian Tanti Burlò, will be exhibited at ARThall, Gozo between September and October 2021. Exact dates to be announced later in the summer.

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Opinion /Art in Malta June - October 2021 MALTA

JOANNA DELIA

A bad workman blames his tools

The case of the artistic chicken and its egg (and their respective IQs)

ow does a country become ‘the best in the world’? How does a country or a city establish itself and its identity as one that deserves a visit? One that deserves investment – whether emotional or financial? How does one recover from the devastating effects of a global pandemic? Careful strategic planning involving the creative industries at every stage and in every fold has always been vital for cities way

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past their industrial peaks to express themselves culturally and, in this way, open up to the world and shine. Take the once forgotten Spanish city of Bilbao for instance, thanks to its world-famous Guggenheim museum, it has become something of a cultural mecca in just ten years, generating hundreds of millions in indirect revenue for the community in its first years of operation, and in doing so, placing itself firmly on the map.

In Australia, Creative Victoria and the visionaries of the Melbourne Arts Precinct understood that the human urban experience had to be facilitated by immersion in culture, and not by mind numbing consumerist traps. Melbourne supplied artists with space and then allowed them to dream and create until the city flourished with attractiveness – the rest is history. So what is Malta’s strategy for increasing attractiveness and accepting or

nurturing our identity? Admittedly, within the last decade or so, with the strengthening of the Malta Arts Council and funds that enabled private spaces to find footing, the participation in the Art Biennale in Venice, the rebranding of Spazju Kreattiv, the completion of the Valletta Design Cluster, the highly anticipated MICAS, and many other initiatives, I don’t think we can say we have achieved nothing. But building a kindergarten is just the very first step in the establishment of a good education.

JOANNA DELIA is a medical doctor who specialises in cosmetic medicine. She is also a cultural consumer and art collector who tirelessly supports local contemporary art and culture.

The Catholic Church’s extraordinary business acumen over the centuries is evident mostly and, in some cases, only, through its use of the arts to market, promote and elevate itself to the point of making people pay it to buy tickets to an elusive eternal life. And it has done this by choosing to invest in extraordinary architecture, paintings and visual arts, theatre, the perfume industry, and the commissioning of hundreds of thousands of musical compositions, literature and poetry. This translated into the timeless grand presence of iconic landmarks and collections drawing millions of tourists and solidifying national pride and perceived reputations. If only this country would take a page out of the Catholic Church’s instruction booklet on ‘how to expand your influence, manipulate and make lots of money through Art’. If it did, we would probably be able to heal our reputation, and begin rolling in money in no time. But of course, no self-respecting artist would sell their soul for these reasons. Because you see, an artist is a tool. Whether they like it or not. An unintentional one perhaps. With no official responsibilities. In fact, to insist an artist has responsibilities is frowned upon – an absolute travesty.

Vince Briffa. Photo by John Ambrogio

And yet, Art can be used to mend reputations.

The formation of a nation in its infancy needs cooperation between artists and administrations. And these two speak very different languages and measure life and success in very different terms. As an example of the success of cooperation between artist and authority, as controversial as it is, it is interesting to look at one of the largest non-territorial institutions, and a very powerful one at that – the Catholic Church.

Art can be used to communicate with new markets. Art is the most powerful adult educator. Art is vital in promoting a business, a hotel, or to revitalise a commercial space. It inspires, distracts, angers, confuses, teaches and relaxes the persons who engages with it. These powers have been harnessed by the most successful communities, in every era, in very part of the world.

avaggio was there before his patron decided to possibly force him into decorating the altar of St John’s Cathedral. But surely both were somehow proactive enough for that masterpiece to have come into existence. You cannot expect an artist to come up with a business plan, projections and a feasibility study for an application for funding. That’s not what an artist does. An artist creates. An artist makes art. An artist needs space and time. Space and time can be given to an artist. Space and time can be given with the least restrictions possible. And then there is funding. How do you fund art without stifling it? Who decides what and who to fund? On the other hand, it is problematic when the artist becomes complacent and sucks up to the system for funding even after being regarded in derogatory ways and still does not dare use their power to unveil the idiocrasy unravelling around them. Where is the rebellion? Where is the angry artist? Where is their work? Surely not all art requires public funding. How much more desperate must an artist be made before their divine masterpiece is written? An artist refuses to set up a commercial business. An artist is only concerned with their art. They mostly shy away from marketing and sales. In fact, in mature situations, the promotion and selling of artwork is usually done by gallerists or agents or producers of exhibitions – sometimes by the person own-

ing a space – and sometimes PR work is done by the curator. Artists stay away from ‘the system’. They are often nomadic and unplugged. They try not to be ‘employed’, never to have a master valuing freedom more than anything but then fail to qualify for property loans and pensions. So, in effect, commenting on the ‘business acumen’ of the artist is a fallacy. The worst artist is, in fact, one who works for money. And, therefore, in order to be able to translate artistic genius into society-bettering juice it is the enablers’ IQ which should be questioned, not the artists’. If money is power, how can money-hungry people be oblivious of the power of art? Or are they afraid of the ironic checks and balances that art provides, often in the community’s subconscious? (They would rather promote dead artists. They are easier to handle). But there is no reason to fret. After all, a society must become a pressure cooker for an artist to function. The harder an artist is hit, the more extraordinary their work. After the dark ages came the Renaissance. The chicken or the egg in art is a narrative that the authorities can manipulate – if they are capable. For it is their business acumen that is questionable when they fail to understand the importance of the subtle art of facilitating artistic expression.

Imagine if the powers that be on this island figured out how to invest in art and harness these abilities. Imagine if Marsa became the new Shoreditch. Imagine the pischeria becoming a music hub with artists’ workshops. Imagine the powerhouse became our version of Tate Modern on the Grand Harbour. Imagine St Elmo examination centre was given to the artists to use as studios and exhibition spaces. But who is supposed to make the first move? The genius and audacity of CarUntitled (Opuntia ficus-indica) I-IV, by Aaron Bezzina a site specific installation for ION restaurant at Iniala Harbour House, Valletta. Curated by Maria Galea

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Review / Exhibition / Yayoi Kusama June - October 2021 GERMANY

GABRIELE SPILLER

VICTORY on points Yayoi Kusama has established herself internationally through her seemingly playful art. Behind her work’s jovial allure is a creative path and suffering that spans more than 80 years. The Gropius Bau in Berlin is dedicating a major retrospective to her.

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GABRIELE SPILLER is a journalist with an MA in Art Education. She lives in Berlin and Ghajnsielem. Her book 50 Reasons to Love Gozo is an expression of her enthusiasm for Malta’s culture.

Eight installations reconstructed To this end, director and curator Stephanie Rosenthal has reconstructed eight historical installations. She begins with the first exhibition in Kusama’s hometown. In her youth, patriarchal post-war Japan became too confining for the young artist. She moved to New York in 1957 and dove into the art scene. In her studio, starving and losing track of time, she worked to exhaustion. She asserted herself in an industry dominated by white American men. Her role model was the painter Georgia O’Keeffe, with whom she had previously corresponded and who motivated her to emigrate.

Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Installation view “A Bouquet of Love I Saw in the Universe”, 2021, Gropius Bau. © Photo: Luca Girardini.

Yayoi Kusama, Portrait. © YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy: Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro & David Zwirner

n every genre of art, at every time, some exceptional people create the extraordinary work because they perceive the world differently from normal people. “Normality (denotes) desirable, acceptable, healthy, supportable behaviour in contrast to undesirable, treatable, disturbed, deviant behaviour,” says the Spektrum lexicon of psychology. The exceptional Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is such a case. In need of treatment, she admitted herself to a mental hospital in 1977; but her wishes for a better, more loving world are not abnormal.

In the 1960s, she created soft sculptures – phallus-shaped ones. This, of course, fits perfectly into the time of the sexual revolution. In Yayoi Kusama’s case, however, it is another form of self-therapy, a working through of traumatic experiences from her own parental home. In Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show the artist sits naked on a rowing boat filled with fabric phalli. >>

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto in 1929. Even as a child, she developed hallucinations: “One day, looking at a red floral tablecloth, I turned my eyes to the ceiling and saw the same red flower pattern everywhere, even on the window panes and frames. The room, my body, the entire universe was filled with it. This was not an illusion, but reality,” she wrote in her autobiography, The Odyssey of My Struggling Soul. For decades, the dense polka dots patterns have been Kusama’s artistic trademark. She not only decorated entire rooms and fashion collections with them, but also painted people in performances. Even before there was talk of immersive art, the psychotic artist had created it, when Kusama – herself wrapped in dots – she stood in her installations, her body merged with the sculpture. This feeling can now be experienced in the great retrospective in Berlin’s Gropius Bau. In 19 rooms, some 300 works by the still meticulously creative 92-year-old are on display. A wonderful experience that feels like a warm embrace, especially after emotionally drained pandemic times. A Bouquet of Love - I Saw it in the Universe, thus is the title. Visitors are supposed to lose themselves in it, feeling almost get dizzy.

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Review / Exhibition / Yayoi Kusama June - October 2021 GERMANY Continued

In around 1966, she developed a variant of the Infinity Rooms: mirrored rooms that reflect themselves infinitely – an effect she still uses today. She also created an Infinity Mirror Room for the Gropius Bau. Its philosophical title reads: The Eternally Infinite Light of the Universe Illuminating the Quest for Truth. A highlight of this art form is her Narcissus Garden, at the 1966 Venice Biennale. Although she had not been invited as an artist, through her collaboration with Lucio Fontana, she received permission to lay out 1500 mirror balls on the lawn in front of the Italian pavilion. Visitors scrambled for the balls, which she sold for two dollars each. The idea of a comparatively cheap object with a limited edition was later copied by many studios. However, the Biennale management forbade her to commercialise it – with the result that the remaining balls were stolen from the lawn. In 1993, Yayoi Kusama officially performed at the Japanese Pavilion. Painting – back to her roots In between this activity were difficult years. Her involvement in New York – with

Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Installation view “My Eternal Soul” series, 2021, Gropius Bau © Photo: Luca Girardini.

Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Installation view “THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS”, 2021, Gropius Bau. © Photo: Luca Girardini.

Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective, Installation view “Aggregation: One Thousand Boats Show, New York, 1963”, 2021, Gropius Bau. © Photo: Luca Girardini.

provocative performances in the city and orgiastic happenings in her workshop – took its toll. Psychologically drained, she returned to Japan in the early seventies and decided to live in the protected space of a Tokyo clinic. Some ten years later, younger curators discover her vivacious work. Kusama is now painting again, in acrylics on canvas. The final room in the Berlin exhibition is entitled My Eternal Soul; with the tight hanging of biomorphic motifs, she returns to her beginning. Originally intended to comprise one hundred works, the series has now grown to well over seven hundred. Obsessive patterns engulf the visitor and draw them into the artist’s mysterious universe. Yayoi

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Kusama has used art to reconcile herself with the world, including her family. The vitality and positive aura of the works give strength and also appeal to young visitors. According to Stephanie Rosenthal, it is the most comprehensive Kusama exhibition Europe has ever seen.

Kusama The Graphic Novel

Yayoi Kusama calls it a “greeting to the world” from her self-imposed isolation and associates the paintings with a wish for healing. Not for personal recovery – she has long since resigned herself to that – but for an end to the pandemic.

With the comic book Kusama, illustrator Elisa Macellari has succeeded in a congenial realisation of Kusama’s dotted world. The biography illustrates the subtle perception of the cult artist and tells adults and young people about an unusual woman.

Yayoi Kusama: A Retrospective. Gropius Bau, Berlin (until 15 August). www.berlinerfestspiele.de

Published by Laurence King (2020). Hardcover, 128 pages, €14.

Review / Architecture / Venice June - October 2021 ITALY

ERICA GIUSTA

VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2021 How will we live together? A most timely question, addressed in an old-fashioned way.

The UK pavilion. Courtesy of British Arts Council

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ERICA GIUSTA is Director of Innovation at architecture firm AP Valletta. She read for an MA in Architecture, and has a Post-Graduate Master from the Sole24Ore Business School in Milan. She contributes regularly to academic journals and international architecture magazines such as A10 New European Architecture and Il Giornale dell’Architettura.

traditional opening of the 17th Architecture Biennale seemed improbable up until a few days before the (stereo) typically glamourous crowd of architects, artists, journalists and curators arrived in Venice as they would every May in pre-pandemic times. After months of lockdown, and despite traveling restrictions and curfews, the city was suddenly once again teeming with life and activity. Swarms of visitors sipping on their spritz while indulging in the “high-brow, transitory theme park of ideas for the educated elite,” as defined by Carolyn Smith on The Architectural Review. Curated by Lebanese architect Hashim Sarkis, Dean of the School of Architec-

ture at the prominent Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 2015, this Biennale had to face great challenges, including being postponed twice and losing participants along the way. But it was also offered an unprecedented opportunity for real, radical change by the global crisis of the status quo. The main theme, “How will we live together”, was almost prophetically announced a few months before the COVID-19 outbreak, in an effort to assert “the overlooked role of the architect as both cordial convener and custodian of a new spatial contract”. What kind of new spatial contract? One in which “we can generously live together, as human beings, as new households, as emerging communities demanding equity, diversity and inclusion, across political borders

Japanese pavilion. Courtesy of The Japan Foundation.

and against global crisis”, as Sarkis explained during the inaugural press conference. Many urgent topics – perhaps too many – have all been exacerbated by the pandemic. Their complexities produced one of the most puzzling, outdated and energy-draining exhibitions that the

former rope-making factory’s spectacular spaces have ever hosted. The main exhibition at the Arsenale, in fact, reads more like an anxious amassing of hightech wizardry, models and materials that one has to patiently sift through, than a real attempt at answering the most relevant central question in a lucid and meaningful way. The main pavilion at the Giardini, also curated by Sarkis, is equally chaotic, but presents a few particularly valuable contributions, with more representations from Latin America, Africa and Asia than usual. “How will we live together depends on all of us being present in all of our dignity and expressions, thinking and individuality, but also collectivity,” the curator said in an interview with Dezeen, adding that “Biennales past – maybe two generations ago – were about Europe and North America showing the rest of the world where the avant-garde was going, and the rest of the world coming to Venice in order to copy it, while now it’s the whole world coming to show their solutions, their ideas in Venice”. But is it still the case, that in these times of utter crisis people (and enormous quantities of resources with them) should travel across the globe to be able to share ideas? Sarkis’ vision does not go as far as questioning the legitimacy of the Biennale. On the contrary, it seems primarily preoccupied with covering all the expected main themes, ticking all the boxes and reinforcing the all-encompassing character of the big machine that the Biennale has become. 3D fabricated pavilions and robots standing next to poetic

From AKKA, A Collective, part of Time Space Existence at Palazzo Mora. Photo by Julian Vassallo.

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Review / Architecture / Venice June - October 2021 ITALY Continued

Austrian pavilion. Photo by Ugo Carmeni.

installations speaking of political emergencies and truly sustainable initiatives from remote lands: the intentions are good, as much as their outcome is confusing and frustrating. With no real concern for what the vulnerable city of Venice might need to find a better balance between tourism and locals’ necessities, and very meek efforts to adapt pre-pandemic solutions to the emerging global scenario, this Biennale does not go much beyond its good intentions. A few national pavilions explore specific aspects of the ambitious curatorial question in original and stimulating ways, whilst some unofficial collateral tackles

hot topics like the extractive nature of architecture (VAC Foundation); or the bizarre case of the unknown replica of a John Hejduk’s project on a Venetian island, demolished in December 2020 to make way for a glamping site and taken as a case study of contemporary solitary domestic dynamics (Unfolding Pavilion). Also, among the official collateral events, the European Cultural Centre hosts AKKA, an installation about reconstituted stone by the Maltese studio, A Collective, in collaboration with the University of Malta, photographer Julian Vassallo and James Vernon.

View of the Japanese pavilion at the Giardini. Courtesy of The Japan Foundation.

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Highlights HIGHLIGHTS – AT THE ARSENALE

HIGHLIGHTS - AT THE GIARDINI

FROM THE MAIN EXHIBITION CURATED BY H. SARKIS: OMA / Reinier de Graaf’s short film Hospital of the Future, Corderie Will hospitals be able to operate remotely? How? If the number of global patients keeps increasing, how will the system cope with the increased demand for medicination? Who produces it, how and where? How sustainable is it? Reinier De Graaf’s contribution is a series of crucial questions and speculations about how health care structures will evolve, mainly in relation to demographic changes and technological progress – and a much welcomed comfortable break at the end of the chaotic Corderie’s exhibition.

From the main exhibition curated by H. Sarkis: DAAR, Stateless Heritage; All purpose, AAU Anastas; FAST, Border ecologies and the Gaza strip. Several projects addressing the question “how we will live together across borders” face issues of recognition and identity but also show opportunities for contemporary reinterpretations of vernacular building techniques and innovative uses of traditional materials in border areas. The most relevant contributions come from the Palestinian region: DAAR, with a provocative film in which they challenge the Western-European approach to heritage and culture, AAU Anastas, with an experimental stone structure inspired by ancient masonry traditions from the Bethelem area, and FAST, with an installation attesting the indefatigable resistance and solidarity of the small rural Qudaih community, in one of the most unstable and violent Gaza strip territories.

Doxiadis+, Entangled Kingdoms, Corderie A “glowing fungal garden” grown from fungal spores collected in situ, propagated in the mycology department of Athens University under different conditions, “until a result was reached which would show the beauty of what is around us but we do not see”. Gabriela Bila Advincula, Kent Larson,MIT, With(in): Three women, three informal settlements, and the rituals of the meal as a microcosm of urban life, Artiglierie An immersive video installation following three women in their daily routines, in three different parts of the world and, in doing so, exploring a very humane research methodology aiming at understanding communities and urban specificities through table and food rituals. Elementals installation, at the end of Artiglierie, overlooking the Gaggiandre The spectacular installation designed by Alejandro Aravena’s team tackles the recently increased violence in the historical Mapuche-Chilean conflict. A wooden structure evokes the traditional spaces that used to be built for parleys, in order to settle differences and discuss terms for an armistice, while informing visitors with documents and images of the conflict. What better space than the outdoor area overlooking the old venetian dockyards for a moment of contemplation and, perhaps, even a serious attempt at imagining how we might live together? NATIONAL PAVILIONS: Mahallas, Uzbekistan, Artiglierie The Uzbek debut at the Architecture Biennale with an installation by Carlos Casas and 12 photographs by Bas Princen, among other works, is a glorious abstraction of Tashkent’s historical urban neighborhoods, called ‘mahallas’, and their vernacular courtyard houses. The pavilion reads like a three-dimensional collage that explores the value of ancient forms of urban community life in a direct – perhaps at times too direct – but limpid way.

NATIONAL PAVILIONS We Like - Platform Austria, Austria Curated by Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer, the Austrian pavilion “seeks to articulate the profound changes established by the development of digital platforms in our built environment”, as they write in their opening statement. Solid with all the right political and historical references, the pavilion is a brilliant succession of thought-provoking and digital-platform-reminiscing images and quotes, from Marx to Cardi B. “Access is the new capital” and “Data is a relation not a property” are just two of several curatorial statements resonating with Jenny Holzer’s truisms and their radically critical spirit. The Garden of Privatised Delights, U.K. Manijeh Verghese and Madeleine Kessler elevated the crucial role that public spaces will have in the visions of “how we will live together” to the central tenet of their narrative. With a playful and suspiciously Instagram-friendly exhibition design, they question the diversity, inclusivity and accessibility of most British cities and the cultural roots of their extreme liberalism. Co-ownership of Action – Trajectories of Elements, Japan The project curated by Kadowaki Kozo is a delicate exercise in re-considering construction waste as a potential precious resource, and in questioning mass consumption dynamics while doing so. Elements from an ordinary Japanese wooden house, laying on the floors like pieces of a dissected ancient presence there for us to learn from, remind us that “our actions are not ours alone. Any act, however trivial, sits atop an accumulation of countless acts that arose from our interactions with someone else. Therefore it can never be said that what you do belongs solely to you.” HIGHLIGHTS – BIENNALE’S COLLATERAL EVENTS

Wetlands, United Arab Emirates, Sale d’Armi Curators Wael Al Awar and Kenichi Teramoto took Sarkis’ question to the next level: how will we survive together? Their answer is a fascinating and resourceful attempt at creating local resilient supply chains for the construction industry (responsible for majority of the country’s pollution), by turning to nature. The exhibition presents the results of an extensive research on an alternative cement mixture made of natural materials like minerals, salt and sand, abundant in the Emirates and many other Mediterranean countries – including Malta, where the need to develop ad-hoc strategies to react to climate crisis phenomena like desertification is now more urgent than ever but unfortunately still overlooked and oversimplified.

A Collective, Akka – part of ‘Time Space Existence’, at Palazzo Mora On a different planet, revolving around the same curatorial theme of ‘Time Space Existence’ since 2014, the exhibition organised by the European Cultural Centre includes Akka, an installation by Maltese architects A Collective showcasing the work of videographer James Vernon and photographer Julian Vassallo – very much in line with the debate at the Biennale, in spite of the exhibition’s main title. Akka reflects on the urgent need for sustainable alternatives to current construction methods and materials; reconstituted limestone, currently being developed by the University of Malta, is taken as an example of “intrinsically local, recycled material” and a potential building material of the (near) future.

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Spotlight /Art Scene / Cameroon June - October 2021 CAMEROON

CHRISTINE XUEREB SEIDU

CONTEMPORARY CAMEROONIAN ART Investing in new artistic successes

Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, L’hiver bleu, 2021, 180 x 120 cm, Acrylic and posca on canvas Courtesy: AFIKARIS

he international success of many artists and curators from the African diaspora has led to a considerable amount of investments by founding art projects on the African continent. Cameroonian diaspora are not an exception, as we see art institutions like the RAW Material Company (Senegal), founded by Koyo Kouoh (laurete of the Prix Meret Oppenheim 2020) in 2008, and SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin) founded by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (awardee of the Order of Merit of Berlin 2020) in 2010. Most centres were born in Cameroon, however. These include the Bandjoun Art Station, which was founded by artists Barthelemy Toguo and Germain Noubi in 2007, the Artbakery founded by Goddy Leye (d. 2011) in 2004 and the Doual’art Centre for Contemporary Art, founded in 1991 by Marilyn Douala Bell and Didier Schaub.

The projects initiated by the African diaspora gave rise to the success of other African artists and to various art projects which include the RAVY Biennale- Rencontres d’arts visuels de Yaounde 1st edition in 2008, with Perform’Action Live Art as well as the triennial – SUD - the Urban Salon of Doula’. What we also see is this family system where successful international Cameroonian artists bring in young artists to share their studio space where they too, in turn, build their own reputation whilst being mentored by mentors like Marc Padeu, Jean David Knot, Boris Nzebo, Boris Anje, and Ajarb Bernard Ategwa. Other Cameroonian artists include Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Salifou Lindou, Maurice Pefura, Yvon Ngassam, Joel Mpah Dooh, Justine Gaga, Ange Kayifa, Em’Kaleyongakpa, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Samuel Dallé, Romeo Temwa, Dieudonné Fokou, Salifou Lindou, La Lectrice, 2020, Pastel on paper, 130 x 150 cm Courtesy: AFIKARIS

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CHRISTINE XUEREB SEIDU founded Christine X Art Gallery in 2004 after a university degree in Art History and Anthropology. She has returned to Malta after a year in Ghana where she explored African art and culture.

Jean David Nkot, Po.box The Hope Of The Soul, 2021, Acrylic, posca, collage and silkscreen printing on canvas, 200 x 300 cm Courtesy: AFIKARIS

Hako Hanson, Christian Etongo and Samuel Fosso. Although most of their studios, as well as art galleries, are based in Yaounde or Doula, they are still linked to the rural spaces through family ties.

running at the same time until July 31st is his exhibition, Below the Cards, at the Bolo L’Espace in Douala, Cameroon. His work is also on show at the AKAA fair and at Untitled Miami in November. Salifou Lindou will be showing his work at Art Paris in September and at 1:54 London in October, whilst later exhibiting at Afikaris in Paris in February 2022. Dieudonné Fokou has an exhibition planned at Africrea in Yoaunde from 11th September to October 9th. Ajarb Bernard Ategwa’s show at Afikaris will take place from 4th September until 12th October 2021, followed by Moustapha Baidi Oumarou ‘s show at Afikaris as well as at the Artissima, the AKAA Paris and at Untitled Miami in November. If audiences are unable to visit any of these shows in person, they can still visit the virtual Kampala Biennale 2020 online, with Cameroonian Maurice Pefura as one of the participating artists.

Galleries in Doula include Galerie MAM, Doual’art, the Wemah art project, Bolo L’Espace, Annie Art Gallery, and In and off Art Centre, whilst the Cameroon National Museum and the Contemporary Art Gallery are situated in Yaoundé. The Institut de Formation Artistique (IFA) is located in Mbalmayo, the Bandjoun Station is situated in Dschang. Marc Padeau’s exhibition at Jack Bell Gallery in London may have just ended, but can still be seen at Peres Projects in Berlin until 30th July 2021. Jean David Knot has two running exhibitions at present. If viewers find themselves in Paris until July 7th, they will be in time to view his exhibition Human Condition at Afikaris; also La Danse des Esprits du Rocher, 2021, 250x160x140cm brasure, fonte (cuivre, bronze)

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Comment / The Sea June - October 2021 MALTA

KONRAD BUHAGIAR

love Ghadira in the winter when it drizzles. When it is neither bustling nor garish and when, in its abandonment, it reminds me of the wide expanses of deserted beach and roaring waves that suit the cinema so well. The holidaymakers have all disappeared and the beach is empty except for a few wooden boats drawn up high on the sand and a couple of shuttered kiosks, unkept and forlorn like bedraggled old characters waiting for lovers who will never return. The overcast sky stretches outwards, on and on over a turbulent, thundering sea, grey and cold. Scattered around on this pale, gritty canvas, are the dark, distant spots of other company. Like me, they are here to breathe in the salty scene and

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to reconnect with the horizon. Lonely figures stuffed in windcheaters and woollen mufflers stamp along with their dogs in tow. The dogs bound about excitedly over the wet sand, running up to groups of youngsters sitting huddled in tight knots, and the chilly air is suddenly pierced with elated shrieks and highpitched laughter. There is a wetness in the air, a whiteness even, a magic in the mingling of the sea spray, the waves breaking on the sand’s shifting edge and low-lying, wind-driven clouds. It is the whiteness of timeless films I love, the whiteness of a swarm of boys’ sports shirts running to the music of Vangelis, of a little girl’s ballet dress spinning around to Michael Nyman’s piano, or of Jean-Louis Trintignant’s battered white car driving on the damp sand. Cha ba da ba da.

That is not to say there wasn’t any whiteness in the crowded beach of Mongibello one simmering summer day in the life of the talented Mr Ripley. “You’re so WHITE!” exclaimed Jude Law, irritated that his sun-kissed siesta had been interrupted by the awkward, pale-looking Matt Damon in his waist high mustard trunks and nerdy specs. But as much as surprising stories are spun on the edge of a summer sea when it sizzles, winter is the setting for intimate confessions, meditations on life and professions of love. As mushy as this all sounds, I couldn’t help but cringe on reading the news the other day to learn that it is the intention of the Ministry for Infrastructure, with the support of the Ministry for Tourism, to embark on a project for the upgrading of Ghadira Bay, an operation

MUSEO ATLÁNTICO LANZAROTE, Europe’s only underwater museum

THE SEA, THE SEA, THE YEARROUNDQUALITY SEA costing two million Euro, that “will see the reconstruction of pedestrian areas at the shorefront, and the installation of new lights, CCTV systems, fountains and public convenience facilities as well as free Wi-Fi”. (Times of Malta, 28th May, 2021) “We have to change the approach we take to maintaining infrastructure in tourism areas and embrace a new mentality for our zones to be maintained and accessible all year round,” the Minister declared. “We are approaching these projects with year-round quality in mind”. Seriously? Two million Euro worth of lights and CCTV cameras and toilets and free Wi-Fi? Ah no, of course, I forgot to mention there’s a fuddy-duddy fountain feature marvellously marooned

KONRAD BUHAGIAR is a founding partner of Architecture Project and has been responsible for numerous restoration and rehabilitation works in historic buildings and urban sites. He has lectured in Malta and several countries abroad, published numerous historical articles and has been the Chairman of both the Heritage Advisory Committee and the Valletta Rehabilitation Committee.

on the centre of a roundabout and surrounded by ribbons of, no, not algae, but tarmac. The drawing illustrating the proposal that accompanies the press announcement must have taken its creator all of 27 minutes 13 seconds to realise, including time to look for a chair, log into a computer, a pause for a cup of tea, a good dose of social media distraction and some intense, albeit brief, head scratching. All in the name of that mysterious statement that the Ministry’s projects are approached with ‘yearround quality’ in mind. Because, I guess, a sandy beach that changes its mood in winter is capricious and unreasonable – a hindrance to cash-flow and a liability to the economy. As is the erratic nature of the seasons that a Minister, any Minister, who feels omnipotent like Poseidon himself in a dark blue suit and Rolex watch, is capable of reining in with simple tools like floodlights and CCTV cameras and public toilets. Progress is relentless. If a community is alive and thriving it must move forward. As much as we might all look nostalgically back at the past, there is no stopping us being blown ahead by the strong winds of change. But although rebranding Ghadira Bay may be a good thing, I cannot but ask why we should sacrifice the nature and future of this bay, one of Malta’s most important natural assets and tourist attractions, for the sake of issuing a tender for the procurement of lights and CCTV cameras. Could it be that our command of language has been reduced to what is required to fill the pages of a real estate magazine, and that when we are not talking about buildings, about penthouses and garages and square metres and numbers of bedrooms, our imagination fails us? Are we at a loss for words to describe our vision for a rejuvenated sandy beach, constraining us, as a consequence, to

resort to naming items out of a technical brochure? Do we have no romantic notion about making a contribution to the beauty of an area? Who knows, perhaps that rare and precious moment of artistic endeavour will be limited to a discussion of the tender adjudication board as to whether the cameras and light luminaires should be black or white. White I would say, white as the clouds in the winter sky and the waves breaking on the shore, white as Matt Damon’s pale body in Mongibello...

The Museo Atlántico is completely submerged under the Atlantic Ocean, a poignant reminder of the often-destructive impact of Man’s intervention in the natural world. The underwater museum, the first of its kind in Europe, situated off the coast of the island of Lanzarote, consists of 300 man-made sculptures, featuring amongst a myriad of others, a raft of refugees on an uncertain voyage or humans posing for selfies or taking pictures, that change and transform over time as the maritime currents react

croorganisms to inhabit and form artificial reefs where biodiversity can thrive in once-barren areas. The sculptor has also built artificial reefs that attract coral growth and help protect delicate natural coral reefs. In essence, this unique museum is itself an evolving ecosystem – a collection of living artworks that change over time with their environment. It has become extremely popular with divers, snorkelers and art-lovers alike. The cost of the project, I was able to check, again thanks to the free Wi-Fi that I was extremely lucky to avail myself of, was 700,000 Euro. If we must dump concrete, let it be Art! They say that the best things in life come free, like poetry and Wi-Fi. So, by way of concluding, here are some priceless words from Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage that, it is an enormous consolation to know, no amount of lights and CCTV cameras and projects aimed at year-round quality will ever be able to transform.

The Piano, Jane Champion, 1993.

So, as I suppose you have gathered, I think we are getting it altogether wrong. And just in case you happen to capture some free Wi-Fi, generously offered by the powers-that-be, here is an example of a project that you could look up on the internet, that is designed to add another layer to the evolution of a particular marine environment, and that was realised to preserve the area in a sustainable way, to create a tourist attraction that is financially profitable and to add an artistic monument to the place.

with them. In this way, an ecologically responsible interaction between humans and ocean life is created. The sculptures were created by British artist Jason deCaires Taylor, who has created similar works in both Cancun, Mexico and Grenada in the West Indies, the latter listed as one of National Geographic’s Top 25 Wonders of the World. They are made of concrete that is pH-neutral and nontoxic to marine life, serving as the perfect base for mi-

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

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Localist / Directory / Malta June - October 2021

get with...

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ART SUPPLIES GALEA’S ART STUDIO Galea’s Art Studio was established in 1920 by Chev. Joseph Galea and today it is run by Pierre, Eddie and Heather. Apart from the studio which sells prints and artist materials they have also opened an art café on Strait St which provides a space for events such as poetry readings, drawing clubs and good coffee, and a third venue used for art lessons, drawing classes and creative workshops. Art Studio, 70 South Street, Valletta. Art Gallery, 221 Strait Street, Valletta M: 9943 8965 E: creativestore1920@gmail.com W: www.galeasart.com.mt SISTINA ART SUPPLIES Sistina Art Supplies offer high quality art materials for all artistic levels and needs: students, artists, restorers, and gilders, as well as framing services. 8 Amery Street, Sliema T: 2131 4453 VEE GEE BEE ART Vee Gee Bee Art represents leading art material brands such as Winsor & Newton, Liquitex, La Franc et Bougouis, Caran D’Ache, Unison, Arches, Saunders, and Bockingford as well as a varied range of art and craft products for children. Vee Gee Bee Art staff are specifically trained to help the artist and hobbyist get the most out of the products, which are also available online and by delivery across Malta. Bellavista Street, San Gwann T: 2138 5584 E: art@vgb.com.mt W: www.vgbart.com.mt

ARCHITECTS AP VALLETTA AP Valletta is a research-based practice. Their vision is to create an architecture that is a place-maker, a container of meaning, a catalyst of myth and a producer of narratives. 4 Sappers Street, Valletta T: 2124 3981 E: info@apvalletta.eu & media@apvalletta.eu W: www.apvalletta.eu

CHRIS BRIFFA ARCHITECTS Founded in 2004, Chris Briffa Architects’ work is renowned for its distinctive and contemporary approach to context, with a strong emphasis on detail and craftsmanship. In their quest to create sense of place, projects include various hospitality missions - such as the Reef Guesthouse in Bahrain and the local Valletta Vintage - places where many have recounted a timeless experience. W: www.chrisbriffa.com MJM|DA Total design professional services and value – architecture, structures, building services, interiors, and project management. 125 Naxxar Road, Birkirkara T: 2747 7777 M: 9947 7777 E: info@mjmda.eu W: www.mjmda.eu

SISTINA Sistina Art Supplies offers bespoke framing services as well as high quality art materials for all levels and needs: students, artists, restorers, and gilders. 8 Amery Street, Sliema T: 2131 4453

A R T C O N S U LT A N T LILY AGIUS GALLERY With over 15 years of experience, Lily Agius has a keen eye for talented emerging and established artists from Malta and abroad and offers a personalised service for anyone looking for one work of art or wishing to start a collection. 54 Cathedral Street, Sliema M: 9929 2488 E: info@lilyagiusgallery.com W: www.lilyagiusgallery.com

BESPOKE DESIGN MODEL The Malta Office of Design for Environments and Living (MODEL) is motivated by the underlying simple principle that through good design of our built and unbuilt environment we can improve the way we live. MODEL is curated by architects Simon Grech and Alan Galea who seek to challenge and question existing working models in the creative and construction industry today, where no boundaries exist between art, science, business and technology, by adopting an interdisciplinary approach to design both within the MODEL office structure and through relationships with other talented individuals, continuously embracing the complexity of design today. 42 Bisazza Street, Sliema T: 2701 7337 E: info@model.com.mt W: www.model.com.mt

FRAMING SERVICES PICTURE HOUSE Picture House offers Profile Collections from Madrid, Bilbao, Naples, Florence, and London, and designs and creates its own collection every year. They offer three grades of conservation glass, museum paper and boards, custom coloured finishes and hand carved wood. Transport and installation service are also available. 6 Triq Geronimo Abos, L-Iklin T: 2141 6716 M: 7985 8054 (Diane) / 9946 2928 (Kevin) E: diane@thepichouse.com / kevin@thepichouse.com W: www.thepichouse.com

TOM VAN MALDEREN Whilst exploring the intersections between art, design and architecture, Tom Van Malderen‘s work ranges from bespoke furniture to objects, installations and exhibition design. M: 7961 9391 E: tom@tomvanmalderen.com. W: www.tomvanmalderen.com

C U LT U R A L M A N A G E M E N T UNFINISHED ART SPACE Unfinished Art Space Project is a management and consultancy for visual arts projects and exhibitions, large or small. M: 9943 1420 W: www.unfinishedartspace.org L I G H T I N G DONEO LIGHTING Doneo Co Ltd offers specialised services in Lighting Design and Control, from Lighting Plans and 3D lighting renders to intelligent lighting and home automation. Doneo, Park Lane Building, Mountbatten Street, Hamrun (by Appointment) T: 2123 0741 E: info@doneo.com.mt W: www.doneo.com.mt/lighting

LIGHT DESIGN SOLUTIONS Light Design Solutions offers a specialist lighting design service that enhances space. For LDS, light enriches the character and qualities of the designated area, whether it is a house, a working environment, outdoor space or entertainment area, and in collaboration with their partners around the globe, offer good quality products that are in line with the latest lighting technologies and constantly revolutionising the world of light. 38/1 Emmanuel Schembri Street, Birkirkara. T: 2149 6843 E: info@lds.com.mt W: www.ldsmalta.com

INTERIOR DESIGN PIPPA TOLEDO With over 30 years’ experience in interior design, Pippa Toledo is one of Malta’s best-known names in the field with a large portfolio of successful projects including numerous apartments in Portomaso and Tigne Point, Hotel Juliani, Zest restaurant, Barracuda Restaurant, Club 22 at the Portomaso Tower, EMD Offices at the Valletta Waterfront, The Dragonara Casino, the Grandmasters’ Suite, The Drawing Room and the informal dining room at the President’s Palace in San Anton, and Cardini Restaurant. Garden Terrace Court, Triq il-Baltiku, The Village, St Julians T: 2132 3616 / 2134 1367 E: info@pippatoledo.com W: www.pippatoledo.com VERA SANT FOURNIER VSF strives to deliver a luxury service for individuals who appreciate personalised design, quality materials and workmanship and desire a space made just for them. M: 7709 9194. E: vera@verasantfournier.com www.verasantfournier.com

P H OT O G R A P H Y MATT THOMPSON Matt is a photographer based between Malta and London, with a love of photographing people. Passionate about what he does, you can trust Matt will work with imagination, creativity, and integrity on every private or commercial commission. M: 9936 3600 E: email on mail@mattthompson.co.uk. W: www.mattthompson.co.uk

To be listed on the Localist here and on the website www.artpaper.press email info@artpaper.press or call 9929 2488. No.15__ Artpaper / 035

Spotlight //Africa Events/ /Budapest Global June - October 2021

EXHIBITIONS

06.21-10.21

A selection of art events from around the world

2 9.0 5.21

10. 03. 2 1

2 7 .0 5 .2 1

2 3 .05.21

06.06.21

Until 12 September 2021

Until 17 October 2021

Ongoing

Until 01 August 2021

Until 25 September 2021

EPIC IRAN – V&A

ALDO ROSSI: THE ARCHITECT AND THE CITIES – MAXXI THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF 21ST CENTURY ARTS

SYMBOLS & ICONIC RUINS – THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART ATHENS (EMST)

DAVID HOCKNEY: THE ARRIVAL OF SPRING, NORMANDY, 2020 – ROYAL ACADEMY

CÉZANNE DRAWING – THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (MOMA)

MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts celebrates the Italian architect, Aldo Rossi, with the opening of a new exhibition around his work, which forms the basis of the MAXXI Architettura Collection, directed by Margherita Guccione, along with those of Enrico Del Debbio, Sergio Musmeci, Pier Luigi Nervi and Carlo Scarpa. The exhibition Aldo Rossi: The architect and the Cities is curated by Alberto Ferlenga and organised in partnership with the Aldo Rossi Foundation. The show is curated by Chiara Spangaro and features over 800 pieces, including documents, correspondence, models, sketches, drawings and photographs, drawn predominantly from the Aldo Rossi archives, preserved in the MAXXI Architettura Collection, as well as by the Aldo Rossi Foundation, and finally significant loans made possible by courtesy of the IUAV of Venice – Archivio.

The new exhibition, Symbols & Iconic Ruins, at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, explores the ways in which people “perceive and approach powerful cultural symbols”. The show is set to bring together contemporary works of art and architecture by prominent artists and architects from Greece and abroad all under a common conceptual framework. Attempting to synthesise different conceptualisations of the symbol, the exhibition draws on “eclectic affinities” and highlights common features, regardless of their points of departure and production processes. The exhibition comprises artworks that were created specifically for this event and will be displayed for the first time, including documentaries on art and architecture, as well as rare archival material. Due to the pandemic, a digital, online version of the exhibition has been created in a 3D interactive environment, in Greek and English.

Opening at the end of May and lasting through the summer months, The V&A museum in London presents Epic Iran, exploring 5000 years of Iranian art, design and culture, bringing together over 300 ancient, Islamic and contemporary objects on show. The expansive exhibition will be the UK’s first major show on Iranian art and culture in 90 years, with content ranging from 3000 BC to the present day. The exhibition will include sculpture, ceramics and carpets, textiles, photography and film, comprising rarely seen objects from the V&A alongside international loans and significant private collections, including The Sarikhani Collection. Epic Iran will tell the story of Iran’s journey into the 21st century, highlighting its artistic achievements, which remain unknown to many. The exhibition is organised by the V&A with the Iran Heritage Foundation in association with The Sarikhani Collection. V&A, Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RL, United Kingdom www.vam.ac.uk Image: Bottle and bowl with poetry in Persian, 1180-1220© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

MAXXI the National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Via Guido Reni, 4a, 00196 Roma RM, Italy www.maxxi.art Image: Aldo Rossi con M. Scheurer, Progetto per un nuovo stabile amministrativo per la UBS, Lugano, Svizzera (1990) Modello, s.d. carta, cartoncino, legno Collezione MAXXI Architettura. Archivio Aldo Rossi © Eredi Aldo Rossi

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EMST, Kallirrois Ave. & Amvr. Frantzi Str. (Former Fix Factory) Athens, 11743, Greece www.emst.gr Image: Michalis Manousakis_In the Blue of the Main Grammar © The National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST)

David Hockney is one of the UK’s most celebrated living artists. His global reputation rests on an enduring capacity for artistic innovation, including his investigation into new technologies and methods of making art – this includes his work on his iPhone in 2007, before adopting the iPad and Stylus in 2010. A new body of work of his work is being shown at the Royal Academy. 116 works in total have been ‘painted’ on the iPad and then printed on paper, with Hockney overseeing all aspects of production. Each work, all of which have been printed far larger than the iPad screen, allow viewers to see every mark and stroke of the artist’s hand. Made in the spring of 2020, during a period of intense activity at Hockney’s home in Normandy, this exhibition – which opens exactly a year after the works were made during the global pandemic – charts the unfolding of spring, from beginning to end, and is “a joyous celebration of the seasons”. Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W1J 0BD, United Kingdom www.royalacademy.org.uk Image: No. 133, 23rd March 2020. iPad painting © David Hockney

The Museum of Modern Art presents a major exhibition that celebrates the drawings of modern artist Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). The show catalogues his process in pencil and watercolour, offering fresh insights into a lesser-known aspect of the master’s work. Cézanne Drawing is the first major showcase in the United States to unite drawings from across the Cézanne’s career, tracing the development of his practice on paper and exploring his working methods. The exhibition includes more than 250 works on paper, with drawings, sketchbooks, and rarely seen watercolours all forming part of the show. These are shown alongside a selection of related oil paintings, all drawn from MoMA’s collection as well as public and private collections from around the world. MoMA, 11 West 53 Street, Manhattan, New York, USA www.moma.org Image: Paul Cézanne. Bathers (Baigneurs). 1885–90. Watercolor and pencil on wove paper, 5 × 8 1/8” (12.7 × 20.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Lillie P. Bliss Collection. Photo © 2021 MoMA, NY

/ Events/ /Budapest Malta Spotlight /Africa June - October 2021

VISUAL ART EXHIBITIONS

A selection of curated events in Malta

18.06.21

03.21-07.21

Until 14 August 2021

Until 13 July 2021

18. 06. 21

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16.07.21 Until 16 August 2021

Until 31 August 2021

BLINK

HER

ON THE NATURE OF PAINTING

FUGA MODUS

BODIES IN COLOUR

Blink is an exhibition of sculptural works by Tom Van Malderen, and photographic work by Nigel Baldacchino. Blinking is an automatic gesture that half-knowingly punctuates our perception of visual reality in time. It ruptures the continuum of sight, thus lending it an inescapable and unceasing rhythm. It is also a mundane act of maintenance; we need to shut our eyes to be able to keep them open. The work presented here is concerned with rhythms of life and ways of perceiving. Like a blink, the work ruptures automated and familiar cycles, propelling them forward then back again.

NO ORDINARY TERRAIN

HER is an exhibition by Clint Scerri Harkins who invites us to glimpse into these intimate moments –some are studio works, playful instances captured with great artistry; others are experimental camera manipulations; a third set are captured unbeknownst to the model. The artist delves into the deep burrow of intimacy, by portraying his own partner and thus an integral part of his daily life. All images are minimalist in composition and devoid of props, yet captivating and copious with reflections.

We are all familiar with marking out our territories, especially on our islands, where all sort of space is limited, precious and regularly contested. With No Ordinary Terrain, the artists – Sandra Zaffarese, Aaron Bezzina, Keit Bonnici and Tom Van Malderen – invite audiences to look closely at the appropriation of space both from a local and a globalized perspective, whilst tapping into personal and collective stories. They are digging deep into the various relationships between the public and the private sphere, and experience how the boundaries between both spheres can be more fluid, poetic, refreshing and inspiring than our polarized contemporary media bubbles make us believe. NO ORDINARY TERRAIN unravels certain mechanisms in our society and asks us to reflect on the systems that we use unconsciously each day; it illustrates that no terrain is ordinary and reveals more about who we are, and how we shape our reality and.identity. Supported by MUZA and the Arts Council Malta’s Project Support Grant.

Stefan Spiteri (b. 1998), works mainly with painting, drawing and collage, his creative process is concerned with space, memory and time. These themes are further explored through the continuous layering of meaning, material, and gesture. In this series of work, the paintings act as a microcosm of the natural world. Just like any living organism that transmutes energy into matter so does the painting process, similarly the work encapsulates the transfer of energy from lived experience into matter.

Fuga Modus, (Flight Mode), is a body of work that recalls the moment we switch our mobile phones on flight mode once the airplane takes off; the urge to flee away from a reality that betrays our expectations from life; the need for nature when the city becomes claustrophobic. Conceived at a time when travelling was not an option, and inspired by the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz, these works transported Joyce Camilleri to ethereal places and ambiguous spaces that echo familiar Maltese landscapes and long for unknown territories, where silence and tranquillity reign.

London-based photographer Stephanie Galea presents a new collection of work portraying women and the circle of life with bodies highlighted through the use of bold colours in negative spaces, creating honest portrayals of womanhood. Galea is an established photographer having worked with well-known global publications including Vogue, amongst other titles and returns to Malta this summer to exhibit her latest work in Valletta and to start work on a new Malta-based collection.

Where: il-Kamra ta’ Fuq, 4, New Life Bar, Church Square, Mqabba Every day from 6am to 12pm

www.lilyagiusgallery.com

Where: Valletta Contemporary, 15, 16, 17, Triq Lvant (East Street), Valletta Wednesday to Saturday from 2 - 7pm www. vallettacontemporary.com

Where: il-Kamra ta’ Fuq, 4, New Life Bar, Church Square, Mqabba Every day from 6am to 12pm www.artsweven.com Image: HER8 by Clint Scerri Harkins

Until 1 August 2021

. Where: MUZA

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Until 14 August 2021

Where: Valletta Contemporary, 15, 16, 17, Triq Lvant (East Street), Valletta Wednesday to Saturday from 2 - 7pm www. vallettacontemporary.com Image: courtesy of the artist

www.artsweven.com Image: Axis Mundi, by Joyce Camilleri

19.07.21

Where: La Bottega Art, 201 Merchant’s Street, Valletta 12pm until 9pm

Image: Courtesy of the artist

Check out our new website!

Victory on points

Yayoi Kusama has established herself internationally through her seemingly playful art. Behind her work’s jovial allure is a creative path and suffering that spans more than 80 years. The Gropius Bau in Berlin is dedicating a major retrospective to her.

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Articles inside

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LOCALIST A list of creative services in Malta

EVENTS Highlights around the globe

DEVELOPMENT Konrad Buhagiar

EXHIBITION Major retrospective for Yayoi Kusama in Berlin

FEATURE How art creates business and enriches a country’s culture

ARCHITECTURE Erica Giusta visits the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021

Q&A A new art space opens soon in Floriana

EXHIBITION by Antje Liemann creates an imagined world where humans cease to exist

AFRICA Investing in new artistic successes in Cameroon

DESIGN fuse, a community-driven art project opens in Valletta

EXHIBITION Ann Dingli meets artists Lydia Cecil and Sebastian Tanti Burlò in their London studio