WHEN THE MOON WAXES RED
>> Exhibition, page 20
JOANNA DELIAPOST DIGITAL
The digital art-scene and a ponderance on its relevance and future
The sci-fi interpretation of the future in the post-war world and in my childhood invariably included machines which took over the world as well as portals into other dimensions, parallel worlds, whether philosophical, psychological or material and I have no doubt that since the advent of the internet era, we are living in two worlds. Concurrently, and in order to explore those other worlds we dreamt of, we have created the portals ourselves. We have created the portals, and constructed the worlds ourselves.
>> Feature, page 16
“This is the story of what happens after your property and after your progress. It’s over. And baby, you didn’t survive.”
Editor Joanna Delia
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Contributors
Matthew Attard
Francesca Balzan
Clint Calleja
Glen Calleja
Austin Camilleri CO-MA
Charlie Cauchi
Joanna Delia
Charlene Galea
Erica Giusta
Maren Richter
Romeo Roxman Gatt
Margerita Pulè
Claire Tonna
Gabriel Zammit
Yue Wu
London Design Biennale
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Museums + Galleries
Christine X Art Gallery
Green Shutters Art Space
Lily Agius Gallery
London Design Biennale R Gallery
Saatchi Gallery, London Society of Arts
Spazju Kreattiv
The 8th of March is a day reserved for remembering the fact that half the world’s population suffers discrimination and is cursed with invisibility in most of the world. Read about the upcoming exhibition curated by Maren Richter - When the Moon Waxes Red, at Spazju Kreattiv. Spazju also hosted a show commemorating the epic life of Katya, Malta’s first openly trans woman - curated by the duo Romeo Roxman Gatt and Charlie Cauchi - art activism is thriving on the island, as is also seen in the poignant works by Clint Calleja - breaking through the heavy subject of mental health.
There are so many events, and games in the artists playground it might seem that we hit the right formula but alas, the private sector is missing. Patronage is lacking. Philanthropists are happy to support health-related charities but don’t seem to understand that society suffers without culture - and the artists cannot engage, enlighten and entertain without the support of organisations who are hoping to profit from this same society.
The Academy of Givers is holding an Impact event in March where asides from discussing ways to collaborate and reach more persons, and help alleviate some of the social ills will hold a workshop highlighting the importance of patronage for art and culture. A thriving art-scene is good for tourism, is a means of adult education, helps improve the visual and auditory vocabulary of the people helping them make better aesthetic choices and most importantly stimulates thought. It keeps the youth from leaving, prevents brain drain and inspires those who stay, enriching their lives.
With so many platforms, art spaces and events around, it is harsh to see that thriving businesses refuse to be part of a possibly transforming sector. May the spring bring with it an awakening. And a spirit of collaboration united through a love for art.
05. NEWS Malta-based gallery exhibits at Affordable Art Fair, London
05. VIDEO work by artist Austin Camilleri in Helsinki
11. EXHIBITION Maltese archival investigative exhibition in Brussels
34. FEATURE Building Angola through art
38. ART FOR SALE A selection of fine art for sale by local galleries and from private collections
REVIEWS
27. EXHIBITION by Clint Calleja at St James Cavalier
28. GALLERY EVENT If visual art could talk, Claire Tonna would be its interpreter
30. EXHIBITION Which brought the iconic Katya back to the realm of the fabulous
32. DANCE ZfinMalta’s double bill performances
EXHIBITIONS
SPOTLIGHT + INTERVIEW
16. DIGITIAL ART A ponderance on its relevance and future
07. INSTALLATION Malta exhibits at The London Design Biennale
24. ARCHITECTURE What can the metaverse offer to the real world?
12. STREET ART Exhibition by over 150 artists, icons, rule breakers and mark-makers in London
14. EXHIBITION A play on social ties and social standing at MUZA by Francesca Balzan and Glen Calleja
20. MALTA The ‘unless’ of future scenarios and the options we still might have for saving the planet
36. EVENTS A selection of exhibitions in Malta and Europe
Have an art or design event in 2023?
Valletta Contemporary www.artpaper.press
“Philanthropists are happy to support health-related charities but don’t seem to understand that society suffers without culture.”
Joanna Delia
ISSA DALAM by
Austin Camilleri
Issa Dalam - Night has Fallen - is a video work by artist Austin Camilleri, investigating transience. It was recently projected in February, every evening after the sun sets on the facade of the Anchorage Museum in Alaska.
Seas both unite and divide. Horizons may become threatening barriers as well as destinations for future hope. The sea facilitates the movement and interaction of people, ideas, and ecosystems. This work uses time as a way of investigating transience and timelessness in an ever-changing oceanic landscape. The clock marks Alaska time in Maltese. Clocks mark timehin in Maltese - over the passing of time - zmien in Maltese. The rhythm of the video alludes to traditional bell clocks, widely in use in the Mediterranean, where the strike is on the quarter hour rather than on the second.
Issa Dalam was first exhibited at the BOZAR in Brussels in 2017.
MALTA BASED GALLERY TO FEATURE AT THE AFFORDABLE ART FAIR IN LONDON
Christine X Curated (of Christine X Art Gallery) has been selected as one of the art galleries to feature at the Spring edition of The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park in London from 8th to 12th March 2023. Being held at the Battersea Evolution in Battersea Park, it will be bringing together a fantastic selection of emerging and established galleries from across the UK and around the world.
If you are in London during this time and would like to attend the fair to visit the Christine X Curated stand F8, contact the gallery for a complimentary ticket.
London Design Biennale announces the first exhibitors for its 2023 edition
‘THE GLOBAL GAME: REMAPPING COLLABORATIONS’
London Design Biennale announces the first confirmed exhibitors for its 2023 edition, taking place at Somerset House from 1-25 June. The theme of this year’s Biennale, ‘The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations,’ goes beyond borders and territories to enact new forms of international cooperation and participation through the medium of design.
The fourth edition continues the Biennale’s mission to demonstrate how design can better the world we inhabit. Exhibitors will share perspectives and solutions to some of the global issues that face humanity today, exploring areas from the urban environment to traditional practices, environmental sustainability to the humanitarian response to conflict.
Victoria Broackes, Director, London Design Biennale, said, “The previous Biennale took place towards the end of the global pandemic and once again the global context has drastically changed. Despite this, international design teams continue to demonstrate the possibilities
of what can be achieved through design and design thinking. The Biennale is the place to see what is on people’s minds, across the world, right now. This year we will see exhibitors presenting design in all its forms - from ancient weaving traditions through futuristic urban planning, from AI systems to collaborative humanitarian efforts.”
The Nieuwe Instituut is experimenting with the Biennale’s format of national and territorial pavilions by asking participants to collaborate with the help
of an online game. ‘The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations‘ prompts and encourages participants to find new ways of partnering with each other.
Aric Chen, General Director, Nieuwe Instituut, said, “The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations‘ aims to create an alternative geopolitical landscape driven not by competition nor conflict, but rather cooperation. We all agree that global challenges require global collaboration. This is easier said than done, but in some small way, we
hope real international exchanges will arise from this biennial in a way that also invites visitors to become part of the process.”
The first exhibitors to be announced are: Abu Dhabi, the humanoid Ai-Da Robot, Automorph Network, Care Pavilion, Chatham House, Chile, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dubai, India, Malta, the Swiss museum Mudac, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, South Korea, Spain and Peru, Taiwan, The Delegation of the European Union to the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
In the courtyard, Malta will adapt the form of the ‘village square’, demarcated with fabrics using traditional PhoenicianMaltese dyes, to highlight ancient approaches to the urban environment and the chance encounters that they encourage. On the River Terrace, India will invoke the sensory impact of a ‘chowk’ – an open market at the junction of streets – through the visual metaphor of a charpai, a traditional woven daybed found across India.
Designers from across Ukraine will come together to draw on its history
News / London Design Biennale
UNITED KINGDOM
Continued
of creative richness to demonstrate the vital role that collaboration plays in forging new means of connection and communication in a time of war. Poland will reinterpret the window as a symbol of cross-border collaborations, referencing the donations of windows from Poland to Ukraine to help those whose homes have been destroyed.
Abu Dhabi highlights the traditional AlSadu technique of weaving, practiced by Bedouin women in the UAE to create the tents and social spaces where families and visitors convene. This technique was recently added to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. Spain and Peru collaborate to demonstrate how historic design practices might offer alternative means of collaboration today, as symbolised through the ‘cajón’. This percussion instrument, part of the Afro-Peruvian tradition later brought to Spain, has become the ’traditional’ instrument of flamenco music.
Responding to themes of societal disorientation, the Netherlands pavilion will be an ever- changing site-specific installation distributed throughout Somerset House to support moments of gathering, assembly and reflection among other participants. The European Union Delegation to the United Kingdom will present the New European Bauhaus initiative - a movement to facilitate and steer the transformation of our societies. Romania will emphasise humanity’s interconnection with nature and the need for regenerative practices to ensure the relationship continues to be
sustainable into the future. Automorph Network brings together designers from France, Italy, Israel and the US to examine how the process of biomimicry learnt from nature can be copied in our own designs to drive innovation. Taiwan will showcase collaborations across industry, trade, natural resources and the economy.
South Korea will use Mixed Reality to bridge the gap between past and future, imagined within the surrounds of the traditional Korean garden. The world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist, Ai-Da, will prompt questions about how collaboration with AI technology might shape our future and its impact on creativity.
Democratic Republic of the Congo reimagines the country’s national museum as a virtual world, exploring the country’s rich and varied communities and culture.
The Care Pavilion asks us to focus on the politics and ethics of care – be that ‘caring for’, ‘caring about’, ‘caring with’ –and how it can manifest itself in relation to humanity and beyond.
Portugal will bring attention to the issue of violence against women through their voices, to catalyse change. Mudac, (The Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland) will speculate on a global management system for planetary issues by bringing together different types of intelligence around a control console.
New this year, the Eureka exhibition, running alongside London Design Biennale, will showcase design-led innovation from leading research centres. It will spotlight university research departments, demonstrating cross-disciplinary invention and creativity taking place now and changing the world of tomorrow. Exhibitors
include Kingston University, Sheffield Hallam University, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow School of Art, The UK National Centre for Ageing (NICA), Canterbury Christ Church University, King’s College London.
The Future for Beginners is an irreverent and thoughtful exploration of the challenges of managing complexity in the face of the climate crisis and a more uncertain world through interactive game play, created by Chatham House, David Finnigan, Melanie Frances and Becky-Dee Trevenen in partnership with London Design Biennale.
Further details of the first announced projects below. Design teams and additional information can be found at londondesignbiennale.com.
MARGERITA PULÈ is an artist, writer and curator, with a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts, and founder of Unfinished Art Space. Her practice and research are concerned with the contradictions of politics and social realities.
REWILDING MEMORIES; COLLABORATION, RESEARCH AND IMAGINATION
IIn 2019, Elise Billiard Pisani and I embarked upon a research project around inventories; lists of objects, goods, possessions, drafted by notaries over centuries, covering life and business events such as inheritances, stock-takes, dowries, tenders, and ships’ cargoes. We were lucky to have the support of the Notarial Archives Foundation, whose volunteers welcome researchers, artists and genealogists (as well as the occasional cat) to search through some of the 20,000 notarial registers and other historic manuscripts housed at the Notarial Archives, spanning a period of 600 years.
Through the exercise of sifting through the many centuries-old papers, letters, bills and logbooks we became fascinated by the physical archive. What attracted us was not only the historical or evidential data, but also the physicality of the folios and the archives themselves. The condition of the pages – which date from the 16th to the 20th century, the mix of languages, the indecipherability of their various handwritings, and the notes made in their margins, meant that we, not being historians, and unexcited at the prospect of thinking like one –were obliged, but also free, to take our own meanings from the archives.
During this time (December 2020 to be precise), we came across a small open call on social media by artist Claire Ducène, calling for artists and researchers to create a group around the idea of a fictional archive. The open call suggested ideas like the ethics of lying or inventing public records, the use of the archive in contemporary art, and the strange question of archiving something which doesn’t actually exist. Deep as we were in our inventory research, we were intrigued by the ideas put forward, and reached out to her.
What resulted was a two-year collaboration with artists and researchers from many different disciplines and backgrounds, including a historian, an anthropologist, as well as a choreographer, an opera composer, and a filmmaker. The artists who were
invited to join the group all had a particular relationship with the archive or the archival document; some focus on physical collections, while others work sonically, and others create their own archival material from contemporary events. Some use archives in their ‘raw’ form, while others take a completely different starting point from which to create their work. During monthly meetings, each of the 16 or so members shared their work and interests with the group, building up to a 10-day residency at the artistic research centre ISELP in Brussels and La Métive, a residence in south-west France. This January the group returned to ISELP to set up the group exhibition Memories Gone Wild
Elise and I joined the project through our research into the concept of the inventory. However as time went on, our focus shifted, and our thoughts meandered from the human difficulties which official documentation processes create, to the absurdity of personal identification, and back to the preserved records at the Notarial Archives in Malta. In the end, our journey took us to an island – the island of Farfara, which may or may not have existed and which appears on a small number of 17th century maps of the Maltese archipelago. This island off the coast in various locations –sometimes appearing in the place of the rocky outcrop of Filfla, and sometimes shifting westwards past the Dingli Cliffs and towards the south-western Mellieha coastline. Through our research, we began to pull together a story, and a hazy picture began to appear; one of an obscure and mysterious island which, though small, may have played a vital role in Mediterranean geopolitics, as the fourth (inhabited)
island of the Maltese archipelago. Several personal testimonies, both historical and contemporary, although fragmentary, provided us with evidence that Farfara not only existed, but that its intermittent intangibility has allowed it to play host to enigmatic events on the world stage. The archives which we presented are made of a collection of artefacts and documents linked with six Farfara ‘witnesses’, seemingly the only six people who have documented travel to the island (although this cannot be fully verified). The six witnesses could be described as reluctant, since for the most part they have not voluntarily made their knowledge public. Their individual stories are too long and detailed to list here, but just two summaries may provide an idea of their relationship with the island.
Mirza Aboul Taleb Khan (also known as Abu Taleb Tabrizi or Abu Taleb Isfahani) (1752–1805/1806) was probably an Indian tax collector working for the British. His legacy is a detailed account of his travels under the title Masir Talib fi Bilad Afranji. This travelogue is extraordinary not only for its reverse description from East to West, but also because it presents a unique description of the island of Farfara, including a list of indigenous fauna and flora. Artefacts linked with this adventurous character include drawings, tools and botanical specimens.
Another interesting example is Asunción Axiela La Sorte, a shadowy character born into a privileged family in 1930s Spain. How she came to know about Farfara is unclear. Many questions remain unanswered however documentation has surfaced showing
Axiela La Sorte posing as an air hostess assisting the President Gorbachev and his wife during the 1989 USA-USSR summit off the coast of Malta. Why she appears in these photographs, and the exact nature of her link with Farfara remains unclear, although her interest in flying and her privileged background appear to have facilitated her access to the island. In fact, her pilot’s license is one of the items on display within the exhibition.
The process of collating the Farfara Archives provided us with an opportunity to research the mechanisms behind the production of accepted truth through the documentation of fictitious islands and historical myth. As did many of our colleagues in the Fictive Archies group, we spent time thinking about the politics of public culture and particularly ideas of post-truth. The creation of a believable archive, following a simulated version of bureaucratic and scientific frameworks; allowed us to play with bureaucratic procedures and structures, where new narratives and interpretations arise through the placement and association of seemingly unconnected documents.
I started this story with Elise, and a collaboration that meandered and grew between Malta and France. Into that story came Claire, and a group of artists from Belgium, France, Mexico, Colombia, Poland, Germany and the UK. And for now, we’re in Farfara, looking back at its misty history, but also looking forward and planning its future, whatever that may bring.
Memories Gone Wild; Fictive Archive Investigations, curated by Claire Ducène is on at ISELP, Boulevard de Waterloo, Brussels until 25 March. Exhibiting are Élise Billiard Pisani & Margerita Pulè, Philippe Black, Balthazar Blumberg, Giordano Bruno Do Nascimento, Juan Cárdenas, Alexis Choplain & Noëlie Plé, Céline Cuvelier, Claire Ducène, Patrick Gaïaudo, Cecilia Hurtado, Stéphanie Roland, Agata Skupniewicz, Sam Vanoverschelde, and Julian Walker. More information on www.fictivearchiveinvestigations. com and www.iselp.be.
BEYOND THE STREETS LONDON
Discover original art, rare ephemera, photography, site-specific installations, archival fashion and surprises from over 150 artists, icons, rulebreakers and mark-makers.
From defiant train writers to powerful large-scale muralists, over 100 international artists are featured in BEYOND THE STREETS LONDON. The exhibition, supported by adidas Originals, is the most comprehensive graffiti and street art exhibition to open in the UK, and takes over all three floors of London’s iconic Saatchi Gallery.
Following successful exhibitions in Los Angeles and New York, BEYOND THE STREETS LONDON features new works, large-scale installations, original ephemera and extraordinary fashion that capture the powerful impact of graffiti and street art across the world.
Curated by graffiti historian Roger Gastman, BEYOND THE STREETS LONDON examines the fundamental
human need for public self-expression, highlighting artists with roots in graffiti and street art whose work has evolved into highly disciplined studio practices, alongside important cultural figures inspired by this art-scene.
Each of the exhibition’s chapters explore exceptional moments in the history of this artistic movement; including the emergence of punk; the birth of hip-hop - marking its 50th anniversary in 2023; and street culture’s strong influence in fashion and film.
Curated & Founded by: Roger Gastman Curation: Kim Stephens, Evan Pricco & Raoul Shah
Historical Research & Curation: Caleb Neelon, Caroline Ryder, Toby Mott, Andrew Hayes, Rob Fever, Claudia Gold, Sean Corcoran
Featured Artists include: 10FOOT, AIKO, Alicia McCarthy, André Saraiva, BÄST, Beastie Boys, Beezer, Bert Krak, BLADE, BLONDIE, Bob Gruen, Brassaï, Broken Fingaz, C. R. Stecyk III, CES, Charlie Ahearn, Chaz Bojórquez, Chris FREEDOM Pape, Christopher Stead, Conor Harrington, CORNBREAD, Craig Costello, CRASH, DABSMYLA, Dash Snow, DAZE, DELTA, DONDI, Duncan Weston, Dr. REVOLT, Eric HAZE, Escif, Estevan Oriol, Fab 5 Freddy, FAILE, Felipe Pantone, FUME, FUTURA2000, Glen E. Friedman, GOLDIE, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gregory Rick, Guerrilla Girls, Gus Coral, Henry Chalfant, HuskMitNavn, IMON BOY, Jaimie D’Cruz, Jamie Reid, Janette Beckman, Jason REVOK, Jenny Holzer, Joe Conzo, John Ahearn & Rigoberto Torres, José Parlá, KATSU, KAWS, KC ORTIZ, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, KING MOB, LADY PINK, Lawrence Watson, Lisa Kahane, Malcolm McLaren, Maripol, Martin Jones, Martha Cooper, Maya Hayuk, Michael Holman, Michael Lawrence, Mister CARTOON, MODE 2, Ozzie Juarez, Pablo Allison, Pat Phillips, Paul Insect, POSE, PRIDE, PRIEST, Richard Colman, RISK, Robert 3D Del Naja, Roger Perry, Shepard Fairey, SHOE, Sophie Bramly, STASH, Stephen ESPO Powers, Stickymonger, SWOON, TAKI 183, Toby Mott, TOX, Tim Conlon, Timothy Curtis, Tish Murtha, Todd James, VHILS , and ZEPHYR.
Beyond The Streets runs until the 9th of May, at the Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London. Monday-Sunday: 10am-6pm, last entry at 5:30pm.
Turning Tables
A CONTEMPORARY ART EXHIBITION
Turning Tables is an exhibition that unfolds in four distinct installations engulfing visitors in a narrative rich in symbolism, nuance and playful provocation. It is the latest work by Francesca Balzan and Glen Calleja, who in this collaborative project play with tables as spaces of encounter, focal points of power, sites of revelry or as silent witnesses to our quotidian dramas. Furthermore, the artists use objects from MUZA’s reserve collection integrating them in their own installations.
The title of the exhibition references the Camerone’s former use as a dining room and so evokes and recalls the spirit of place. Balzan and Calleja draw on this past, evoke it and confront it.
Whilst the table is manifestly the unifying concept of the exhibition, the installations are charged with the presences and the absences that orbit around tables. In this respect, Balzan and Calleja call into being a host of ethereal encounters based on those who are welcome to the table or are excluded from it by virtue of social ties and social standing.
As artist-curators, they are particularly attentive at how they employ lighting and subtle soundscapes to transform the ‘Camerone’ into a theatre of moods, images and dialogues. The exhibition is treated as a single coherent composition where all the visual and sonoric elements are orchestrated to lead the visitor through one installation to another in a determined fashion. In this exhibition, visitors do not get to choose where they go and what they see. Balzan and Calleja choose to orchestrate it for them, meticulously, cue after cue, integrating the visitor into the drama.
The visitor is led through an ever changing landscape, each with its own mood. The artists balance a plethora of contrasting cues to suggest shifts in narrative and atmosphere. In one instance it’s empty chairs on a pedestal, in another it’s stabbing knives and heavy chains or a peek into a private instant messaging chat and so on.
In engaging with MUZA’s reserve collection, and integrating a selection of objects from the collection into their own installations, Balzan and Calleja make a bold statement about the politics of museology and art curation. This is very much in line with their project and ethos to disrupt expectations and perceptions of where national patrimony belongs - in or out of the public’s view? - and the mechanisms that dictate that, from the internal politics of a museum to the general public’s access to it and claims on it.
Turning Tables marks the end of a multi-year project of research, collaboration and experimentation between Balzan and Calleja, which was supported by Arts Council Malta. Throughout the project, Balzan, who is known mostly for her work in clay, and Calleja, who works in paper, have been confronting their media and practices in structured workshops; a process of systematic experimentation from which their shared idiom and voice emerged. This process is also revealed and referenced throughout the exhibition inviting visitors to glimpse into the back processes from which the installations emerged.
Turning Tables is a cheeky attempt at prodding calcified narratives about art practice and curation with a strong accent on curation of national patrimony. It is a concrete plunge into jocular dissonance, that impudent oracle that forces itself on creative minds.
Turning Tables is open every day from 10am to 6pm (except Good Friday) at MUZA – The National Art Museum, Merchant’s Street, Valletta, from 30 March to 7 May 2023; Free entrance.
POST DIGITAL
The digital art-scene and a ponderance on its relevance and future
The sci-fi interpretation of the future in the post-war world and in my childhood invariably included machines which took over the world as well as portals into other dimensions, parallel worlds, whether philosophical, psychological or material and I have no doubt that since the advent of the internet era, we are living in two worlds. Concurrently.
And in order to explore those other worlds we dreamt of, we have created the portals ourselves. We have created the portals, and constructed the worlds ourselves.
Such have we reduced the size and relevance of our planet, that it seems to me we are bored by the ease to navigate it - and frustrated by its limitations be they as they are exposed by this same technology that we have organically
moved to creating alternate realities. The frustrations which fueled the construction of virtual lives seem even more powerful than the frustration at the unforgivable, irreversible damage we have caused to the stage on which we act out our real lives on. And just as sci-fi authors predicted, we are more engaged with creating alternates than applying ourselves to understanding even, let alone reversing the physical damage in the tangible world.
And this misplaced feeling of necessity has proved once again to be the mother of invention and the drive for creativity. Technology and new media are driving inspiration in the art world, not simply as tools, but as partners, collaborators in the form of AI. As extensions of the games we used to play with our senses, as alternatives to our eyes, ears and brains - as ways to tantalize the eyes, ears and brains of our communities and audiences.
And I don’t believe this is simplistically escapist. I used to think people wanted to escape - Now I think they just love living across two realities. Two ‘Realities’ which are subject to manipulation - one records maneuvers faithfully and authentically (the machine), while the other relies on the willfulness of the human and their loyalty to truth to elucidate to its history.
Artists and others are calling this period the post-digital one.
‘I see the postdigital as a theoretical figuration that is preoccupied with the understanding of how we currently relate to the digital (and vice-versa), other than about defining a historical time. We are essentially blurring our lives and boundaries with the digital, evolving into new characteristics: we are leading hybrid lives.’ Says artist Matthew Attard, who in his latest work experiments with machine generated multidimensional interpretations of drawings done with the help of an eye tracker as well as analysis of eye-tracker recorded reactions to consumer behaviors on social media platforms such as that presented in his online work ‘Here’s how I did not see what you wanted me to see’ produced by Blitz Gallery, Valletta (2022).
‘Therefore, the digital is not a matter of it being a tool for us to merely use and think about, but we think - with it in mutual and expansive ways. In this view, I draw with technologies such as
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 eye-tracker, 3D scans and 3D software by acknowledging the digital’s agency as contributing to the process of artmaking. In a way, the digital cannot be considered as immaterial anymore (it’s not just virtual anymore, and it’s highly dynamic) - this would also help us see it from a more critical lens with the potential of raising questions and conversations that also need to have ethical dimensions (for e.g. environmental impact of digital technologies and post-capitalist issues among others). Art, and in my specific case - drawing, can infiltrate, misuse, adapt, adopt, collaborate and make-with the digital among other notions, with the capacity to add to and instigate current conversations.’ Adds Attard.
I used to think people wanted to escape - now I think they just enjoy living across two realities.Matthew Attard, Generative development (my right hand), 2022. Eye-tracking drawings, 3D software. Variable dimensions and media courtesy the artist Matthew Attard Generative Thumbs-up, 2020 Eye-tracking drawings, 3D software Variable dimensions and media courtesy the artist
March - May 2023
But the discussion of portals and realms in which art forms exist and engage with reality is only one exciting aspect of post-digital art. There are plenty of functional reasons these media are so tantalizing. Works in Digital media are easy to transport and transform. They are also acceptably multipliable. And easily copied. The rise and rise of the non-fungible token concept, exploding into the jargon of the man in the street in no time, has both initially cheapened the idea of coveting and owning and collecting virtual work while at the same time making it feasible and enticing for the artist to have post-digital media dreams. Pacegallery recently announced the purchase of a first set of NFTs by the Centre Pompidou, and many other notable institutions are doing the same.
Suffice to say, the University of Malta offered a Digital Arts degree before it offered a Fine arts one, and hybrid exhibitions exploring the possibilities, nuances and fears associated with the existence of the virtual, digital world are commonplace in Malta with the most intriguing to date probably having been the ‘Non-aligned Networks’ at Valletta Contemporary in 2019, curated by Yasemin Keskintepe and featuring works by artists such as Egor Kraft (https://www.canva.com/design/ DAFaF8X7bB8/Oa0eImgmC09qN_ jof4ntDg/view?website#4:this-verymoment-intro).
At the time of writing, Gozo based artist Austin Camilleri has a work in the form of a Video projection entitled “Issa Dalam | Night has Fallen” on the facade of the Anchorage Museum in Alaska as part of his hybrid residency at the museum which was first exhibited at the BOZAR in Brussels in 2017.
‘ISSA DALAM is not an NFT.’ says Camilleri. ‘It was created in 2017 as a physical installation using digital tools, and I’m interested in seeing it in a physical space. A work of art completes itself only through a dialogue with the viewer. Issa Dalam has been shown in 3 museums, and while the work was created physically, captured on video and animated, it has been shown in 3 different formats. I’m open to this opportunity and intrigued by the dynamics this can create, both physically and contextually.
Although I’m curious about NFTs, I’m still not curious enough to have ever reasearched its dynamics.
The contamination of media and processes might be more pronounced nowadays, but art has always been such a place. What’s important, in my opinion, is not the medium itself; it’s that the medium or media are a fluent way to sediment an idea. Even more, sometimes the medium/process are an intrinsic part of the work itself, not only as a way to produce it, but inform its being, are the essence of the work. Digital works are easier to travel, but at the end of the day, it’s always a question of narrative, both of the works per se, the exhibition itself and the curation.’
Artists and others are calling this period the post-digital one.Matthew Attard, Screenshot from Here’s How I Did Not See What You Wanted Me To See, 2022. Courtesy Blitz Valletta and the artist Non-Aligned Networks, Valletta Contemporary, Malta, MLT, 2019. Photos by Egor Kraft
Hotly-tipped emerging curator Yue Wu currently pursuing an M.A. at Harvard University whose academic interests lie in the social and cultural construction of aesthetics, and the relationship between art, technology, and politics in the contemporary world is specializing in showcasing future-facing NFT art.
Yue curates exhibitions that showcase the work of underrepresented and emerging NFT artists. I caught up with her to pick her thoughts.
JD: We have blurred the line between the digital and the real in pretty much every aspect of our lives. Do you think digital art will take over material art or will it continue to exist in a parallel universe?
YW: ‘In my opinion, digital art and traditional fine arts will thrive alongside each other and even collaborate in hybrid forms. As we increasingly merge our physical and digital existence, it seems natural that the arts would follow suit.
As a curator, I’m constantly exploring new ways to showcase digital art. In 2021, I curated an online exhibition at Power Station of Art Shanghai, where I presented digital artworks in a webbased context that allowed viewers to interact with the pieces by clicking on different elements. Recently, in Los Angeles, I invited artists who previously worked with digital art to create physical pieces, resulting in a fascinating mix of 3D printing, metal printing, laser cutting, etc. I’m convinced that as technology advances, we’ll continue to find new ways to enhance the visual experience of digital art.’
JD: From your experience as a curator, would you say NFT consumers and collectors are maturing after the initial miniboom which risked tainting the reputation of the serious collector and artist?
YW: ‘I believe that NFT consumers and collectors are gradually maturing and gaining a deeper understanding of the value of digital art. While many people initially saw NFTs as a way to make quick money, the reality is that art is not always a good investment. I always advise collectors to focus on buying art that they genuinely appreciate and enjoy.
NFTs have emerged as a new way to distribute and collect digital art. Unlike
traditional art, which can be physically owned and displayed, digital art is inherently ephemeral and difficult to own in a tangible way. NFTs provide a way to certify ownership of a digital artwork, which is a step forward from the old way of simply receiving an artistmade flash drive or a blue-ray disk. While there are still some uncertainties and controversies surrounding NFTs, they are currently the best option we have for digital art collection.’
JD: what are your unique tips for artists wanting to create NFTs of their digital work?
YW: ‘My advice to artists is to focus on creating high-quality artwork first and foremost, and then consider the best ways to exhibit or sell it, whether as NFTs or screen installations. When it comes to digital art, there are many different forms it can take, from video art to generative art, and each requires a different approach to NFT creation.
For example, if an artist is creating video art, each frame of the video can potentially be turned into an NFT. Generative art, on the other hand, is often created using algorithms or code, and can be sold as a series of unique iterations or variations. Ultimately, art comes first. The key to creating successful NFTs is to create digital artwork that is unique, visually stunning, and emotionally resonant.’
It is fascinating to observe and follow how digital media, as well as art created
with the help of digital tools and AI is positioning itself in the art worldwhere rather than nudging physical and more traditional media aside as many expected, a parallel existence has been carved; and rather then becoming a world for escapists, it is suspended in parallel - as if we are adamant to have two worlds - two lives because we are restless, bored and need the challenge of existing in multiple dimensions to keep us interested in life.
WHEN THE MOON WAXES RED
There is a widespread consensus that we are living at the end of a healthy planet and of civilization as we know it. And undoubtedly the collapse of nature is at the centre of this end-ofworld narrative. To develop this plot further, we might no longer exist on planet Earth, as the narrator - quoted at the beginning of the text - proclaims in Everything but the World, an ironic TV show by DIS, that turns the camera on nature’s least natural invention: the humans (And baby, you didn’t survive).
Set within the prism of a trans apocalypse, the film presents a ‘natural history’ about the homo sapiens’ rise and fall closely linked to the fossil narrative of human history and the notions of ‘progress’.
Only a few years ago the Mediterranean region was declared one of the most vulnerable regions on earth. New advanced technologies of data modelling expect a rising temperature of 2.5 degrees celsius until 2040. The Mediterranean Sea is under threat due to low oxygen and few currents, intensification of maritime traffic, overfishing, deep sea mining, depletion of coastal ecosystems, sea-floor trawling, oil exploration and extraction, to name some of the ecocidal transformations.
So, see you hopefully in 2040, baby.
End of the story!
Unless….
The exhibition When the Moon Waxes Red at Spazju Kreattiv focuses most probably on the ‘unless’ of future scenarios and the options we still might have for saving the planet, by posing a central question: What if we replace the ‘end’ with ‘renew’? Renew our plot, our perspectives, our relationship with the planet or the scales of impacts, and read the earth in the age of advanced climate crises freed from colonial or progress-driven thinking, that allows shifts in perspectives and norms and pluralises our ideas about the world and acknowledge that the current Western understanding of the future that has dominated the world for centuries will simply lead to a dead(ly) end.
“This is the story of what happens after your property and after your progress. It’s over. And baby, you didn’t survive.”MAREN
Under the specific lens of ecocritical feminism, the show assembles artistic positions of female solidarity and care from around the world, aware that there is no ecological justice without social justice. French feminist Françoise d’Eaubonne coined the term Ecofeminism in 1974. Ecofeminism reevaluates equality by offering a view of the world that respects organic processes, non-human perspectives, holistic connections, and the merits of intuition and collaboration. It conceptualises climate change, gender equality, and social injustice as intrinsically related issues, strongly tied to patriarchal dominance in society.
The dis/connection to oceans and rivers
and their endangered ecosystems are ongoing concerns of ecocritical art, and according to the UN, climate change is primarily a water crisis. Cultural theorist Astrida Neimanis created the concept of ‘Hydrofeminism’ to develop a new mode of posthuman thinking that understands our bodies as being fundamentally part of the natural world and not separate from or privileged to it - connected through water. Water is the element that, more than any other, ties human beings into the world around them –from the oceans that surround us to the water that makes up most of our bodies. Those bodies of water interrelate and interact, no matter what and who they are. This different kind of hydrological cycle insists that we relinquish any
lingering illusion of nature as separate from culture, or of humans as separate from the world around us.
New radical ways of more-thanhuman thinking, as Hydrofeminism or Tentacular Thinking proposes, introduced by scholar Donna Haraway, which similarly rethinks the position of humans in our ecosystems, brings forth practices to expand on the vital questions of socio-environmental, interspecies methodologies, as tackled in the works of Ursula Biemann and Robertina Šebjanic.
In her poetic sound piece, Atlantic Tales, Slovenian artist Robertina Šebjanic speculates on how the oceans feel the human actions, how these actions affect the inhabitants of the oceans and seas, and what they would tell us if we understood what they say. In a mix of a fictional story and scientific facts combined with mythological elements, the sound installation refers to the extinction of species amid the sixth mass extinction. While Robertina Šebjanic advocates the animals’ view, Ursula Biemann mediates the alarming situation through an indigenous futuristic scene. The science fictional story ‘Acoustic Ocean’ about a female Sami (indigenous Norwegian) scientist listening to the deep sea, allows us to dive into a living world that is constituted by an interdependent assemblage of
human, marine, machinic, organic, climatic and digital elements - a world that in reality does not exist any longer due to heavy sound pollution in the oceans nowadays.
When the Moon Waxes Red is originally the book title by Vietnamese feminist filmmaker and theorist Trinh Minh-ha from 1991 on representation dominated by Western regimes of knowledge, and the call for changes. Changing the colours of the nocturnal light of the moon in Asian mythology often means an upcoming change of destiny. Changing colours as symbols for heralding fundamental chances, which intend the collapse of the familiar, refer undoubtedly to the time we live in.
That of a ‘great transition’, in which the conception of the era as well as the paradigm of the ‘known’ is heavily disrupted. In the first essay of her book, Trinh connects the human paradoxical idea of ‘colonising the moon, with the aim of coming closer to uniting the earth’ with re-reading the famous Asian mythological figure of the Chinese moon goddess Chang E in a feminist way. Trinh poetically argues for a multicultural revision of knowledge, so that new politics can transform reality rather than merely ideologize it.
Transforming the realities and liberating the power of representation has always
Exhibtion /Malta
March - May 2023
MALTA
Continued
been at the heart of feminist thinking and again more recently under the specific lens of climate justice and colonialism. It was only last year, in 2022, that for the first time in more than three decades since its inception, the most influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mentioned the term “colonialism” in a report. Leading climate scientists finally acknowledge that colonialism is a historic and ongoing driver of the climate crisis.
The take on colonialism and (climate) justice of Peruvian artist Daniela Ortiz is unique. Her series of paintings The Rebellion of Roots depicts sequences of situations in which tropical plants, held hostage in the botanical gardens and greenhouses of Europe, are protected and nurtured by the spirits of racialized people who died as a result of European racism. The Rebellion of Roots draws connections between current geopolitical events and colonial histories, underpinned by various forms of poetic justice. At once colourful, naive, and humorous, the paintings are also sobering and cruel. For example, Frontex officials (the agency that regulates European borders) die choking on ‘anti-colonial’ potatoes from the Andes or fall into the Seine, in the same spot where police repressed Algerian anti-colonial protests in 1961.
Another way of interpreting the ‘changing colour of the moon’ as a transactional space for critical storytelling is offered by Swiss-Haitian artist, Sasha Huber. Her work KarakiaThe Resetting Ceremony draws on the historic dominance of Western natural science. In 2015, Huber travelled to the Agassiz Glacier in New Zealand, named after a Swiss geologist who promoted racial segregation in the 19th century. Huber organised a resetting ceremony, with a karakia (incantation) done by Māori Jeff Mahuika. This incantation served to symbolically un-name the glacier and free it from its association with Agassiz’s racist views.
Natural science in colonial history was hardly harmless, as the artist points out with her symbolic liberation. Geologists from the continent of Europe were sent to the ‘new’ continents to explore geological structures with clear colonial and imperialist interests.
In his not yet published book ‘Radical Futurism’ theorist TJ Demos draws on visions of climate justice to come emerging from the traditions of the
oppressed. The consumption of the earth is an elemental part of capitalism and its extractive corporations. Those disproportionately affected by the depletion of the planet are the same people who, for centuries, have cared for and protected the land: indigenous communities, women, and people of colour. Even those that have already been displaced for generations, those living in ecological disconnect, who no longer have the possibility of being with the land. A being who has protected the earth for centuries.
Chilean artist Sebastián Calfuqueo, from Mapuche origin, depicts in their animation Mapu Kufüll (Land Seafood) the story of lost land and knowledge of survivalism from the indigenous perspective of the Mapuche people in Chile. Calfuqueo learned about Mapuche cosmovision through their grandmother, who had migrated to Santiago de Chile in the mid-twentieth century amid massive Mapuche mobilisation, escaping systematic discrimination and abuse in Wallmapu, the ancestral territory of the Mapuche people. In the video animation, we see a journey of a genderless child who is remembering their grandmother’s instructions to collect mushrooms, i.e., for instance, to cover the roots after extracting them to not damage the mycelium.
Gender stereotypes, colonialism, racism, environmental destruction and illegal land grabbing in Latin America are likewise contained in the work of Argentinian artist Maximiliano Mamani. In the video Ramita Seca, La Colonialidad Permanente (Dry Branch. The Permanent Colonialism), Andean drag queen Bartolina Xixa, an alter ego of the artist, dances in the middle of a rubbish dump. The song
ends with the haunting verse: “We are the waste that this hygienic and aseptic world does not want to see. We are the ones who pay the ecological debts of those who squander us and transact in power”. The persona Xixa is a homage to the Bolivian revolutionary leader Bartolina Sisa Vargas (c. 1750–1782), a woman from the Indigenous Aymara ethnic group who fought the colonial occupation of their land in Peru and Bolivia.
Garbage as a result of overproduction is also at the centre of the Lebanese collective Folly Feast Lab’s Mediterranean Sea Diaries, a research and design project that imagines the future of spaces like landfills and (e-) wastelands. This work is part of the so-called Med Lab in the exhibition - a spatial collage - which gathers materials, reports, quotes, objects and artworks related to the Mediterranean region’s current ecological situation.
The thirteen exhibited projects and works of When the Moon Waxes
Red - unfortunately not all artists are mentioned in this text - look into concepts that propose a different understanding of co-inhabiting the planet, such as indigenous ways of relating to nature by reviving the aesthetic and spiritual bonds between human and non-human interspecies entities and worlds. The struggles are understood as central in order to explore the possibilities of interweaving sometimes poetic, sometimes humorous gestures with radical political ideas of action. The majority of the presented works advocate forms of caring and curing, other than those which live or are taught to live, that bring new female or queer perspectives to bear on ideas of ecological ethics in this critical moment.
The exhibition heeds the call for a polyphonic view of life on this planet, where humans and non-humans, binary and non-binary subjects and matters have an equal say, and pays attention to the often unheard, unseen agencies, knowledge and futurisms.
WHEN THE MOON WAXES RED runs from Friday 10th March to Sunday 16th April 2023 at Space A, Spazju Kreattiv. -it is a commission by Spazju Kreattiv, curated by Maren Richter, exhibition design by Keit Bonnici, and project managed by Ambra Anselmo; with artists Ursula Biemann, Seba Calfuqueo, DIS Collective, Charlene Galea, Romeo Roxman Gatt, Folly Feast Lab (Yara Feghali and Viviane El Kmati), Crystn Hunt Akron, Sasha Huber, Nation25 (Elena Abbiatici, Sara Alberani and Caterina Pecchioli), Daniela Ortiz, Kanthy Peng, Robertina Šebjanic and Bartolina Xixa.
ERICA GIUSTA
WHAT CAN THE METAVERSE OFFER TO THE REAL WORLD IF ANYTHING AT ALL?
As Holly Nielsen recently wrote on Dezeen, “to try and understand the metaverse is to wrestle with buzzwords. The main problem is that the metaverse is a term that does not refer to one particular technology, but rather an unwieldy, loose set of mainly speculative ideas about how we will engage and interact with technology in the future.” What all speculations seem to have in common so far is poor imagination, and even poorer graphics: when landing for the first time on some of the most popular metaverse platforms like Decentraland, for instance, one feels in a state of perplexity and uncertainty over what to do – except for the experienced gamers, possibly. What are we supposed to do in the metaverse, other than creating girthy avatars and use them to wander about these improbable and distressingly ugly digital environments? What is the purpose of this alternative world which strives to compete with the real one, but is nothing more than a bad copy of it, at least for now?
ChatGTP, the newest chatbot launched by Open AI and based on advanced machine learning, can provide a dull
but encompassing direct reply, in its peculiar aseptic tone. According to the chatbot, and therefore to the majority of those who share their ideas on the topic on the internet, some of the most common goals of the metaverse include: creating an immersive and interactive virtual environment where people can socialise, play and shop, without being limited by the physical constraints of the real world; providing a new medium for creativity, education, expression and innovation that enables people to learn and share; facilitating developments of new technologies such as blockchain, virtual and augmented reality and, in doing so, enhancing new economies. However, how the pursue of these main goals will impact the real world remains unclear. When prompted about potential tangible effects, both positive and negative, ChatGTP regurgitates a long blurb which, amongst its predictable textbook remarks, reminds the user that all metaverse platforms are digital tools created by human beings for other human beings: “the actual outcomes will likely depend on how the technology will evolve and how people will choose to use it”, it says.
It is very factual; we are in control. The mindset of being at the passive
receiving end of something generated by a mysterious superpower of alien origins, can be resisted in favor of a pro-active approach towards the possibilities within our control.
As stated by philosopher Maurizio Ferraris in “Post Coronial Studies” (2022), we all need to acknowledge our responsibilities in relation to issues created by new technologies and claim the “superiority of humans over machines”. In short, we have to decide what to do in the metaverse, if anything at all. To make an informed decision might be more challenging than expected, for professionals in the creative field in particular, but how the possibility of the choice will be handled is crucial to all future developments of the digital realm. Many other questions will have to be tackled in the process
of making choices, and many other parameters taken into account, such as the most direct carbon footprint impact of the incredible computational power required by these platforms. Can the sheer amount of energy consumption of decentralised systems result into something more significant than an immersive online shopping experience? Opportunities for experiments which transcend the current libertarian capitalist techno-utopia character of the metaverse exist, and just like in the real world, architecture is deeply embedded in them. Architects can contribute to shaping a digital world which aims at more than replicating the physical world as a gigantic playground. Existing structures, even heritage structures, could find a meaningful way of existing in the metaverse beyond the most basic
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.
entertainment and commercial purposes envisaged so far. The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) software combined with a transdisciplinary research approach and plugged into a metaverse platform, could create opportunities for new and improved participation in heritage projects while making them more accessible to all. As illustrated by architect and researchers Charlene J. Darmanin and Guillaume Dreyfuss in their article “Augmented Memories” for Treasures of Malta, the use of BIM for interventions
like the ongoing restoration of the spire of the St. Paul’s Pro Cathedral in Valletta, provides just an inkling of how the built environment can be documented, understood, manipulated, and monitored in the digital realm, with tangible and positive impacts on the physical. What opportunities does the metaverse offer to a St. Paul’s Pro Cathedral, for instance, remains an important, open question.
OUT OF DESPAIR, COMES HOPE
Most of us have suffered loss in our lives. The death of a loved familymember perhaps, the irretrevable breakdown of close relationship, or an acute betrayal of trust. At such times, many of us struggle to express what we are going through; although these experiences are almost universal, they are also intensely personal and intense. Some turn to spirituality in order to make sense of their loss. Others attempt to numb their emotions until a time comes when they
can begin to accept what has happened in their lives.
And while art therapy is becoming a more accepted form of therapeutic practice, artists – whether they are aware of it or not – many times work through their traumas alone; the artist’s practice becomes a self-medication, a salve for their wounds.
Clint Calleja has experienced more than his fair share of sadness and loss in his life. With the passing of time, a sense of distance has allowed him to – if not accept what has happened to him – at
least to set it down, to place it aside, and to look away from it. As he says in his accompanying text to his first solo show Anamnesis, this body of work is “my coming to terms with the past to put my soul at rest”. Moving forward does not mean forgetting, but rather to recognising that these events do not define him.
Four large rose windows provide the backdrop for each stage of the exhibition each becoming progressively darker as we follow the artist through his journey. Memories of childhood, of maternal love, of friendship replace the rose windows’ traditional narratives, speaking to the aesthetic of stained glass, with its many-coloured light, but using imagery from our lifetimes. Photographs are manipulated and scribbled on, faces are erased – not to deny the subjects’ humanity, but rather to claim this humanity for us all. And colours become more sombre, until finally, the last window is devoid of any colour at all. Seen up close, instead
of from a distance as in a church, the windows become labyrinths, drawing us into private lives and sadnesses; the effect is eery and almost vertigoinducing.
This descent into darkness mirrors the artist’s loss of faith; with each piercing event, the thorn of God’s will lost ever more meaning, until, at last, it meant nothing. And each step in the exhibition echoes this hurt; needles pinching flesh, items taken from the scene of a passing, symbols of despair; they take us deeper and deeper into the artist’s crisis. A sootcovered door taken from his apartment after a deadly fire punches the viewer in the stomach. The artist’s jersey worn on the day his mother died shows a more intimate event, but is no less tragic for it. Generations of sadness are woven into the exhibition, from child to father, from mother back to child, back through family legend and forward to childhood experiences.
But, as we sometimes learn, out of crisis comes catharsis, and out of catharsis can come hope. The last room in the series shows us a trauma that offers a glimpse of the future. A small boy, with huge wings of his back sits on a pedestal, as if apprehensive, considering whether
to fly. Nearby, a mobile device displays a series of numbers which change from time to time. And the rose window opposite is filled, not with images, but with thousands of used insulin needles. For this room tells the story of love; the love the artist has for his
son, who was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, the constant worry of monitoring his sugar levels (the device on the wall is tracking his son’s levels, and the artist keeps an eye on them as we speak), and the cliff-edge on which the family’s life has been placed since the child’s condition was diagnosed.
The winged child, with clear references to Icarus, sits on the point between despair and hope. He might fly too close to the sun and fall, but somehow, in this room, we know that he won’t. We know that this boy is loved and cherished, his life may yet bring challenges and difficulties. But looking at him bravely facing the light, protected by his golden helmet, and watched over through the device on the wall nearby, it seems that a spell has been broken. Sadness fades, and hope is free to enter.
Review /Malta / Claire Tonna & R Gallery
March - May 2023
DR JOANNA DELIAThe Ventriloquist of ‘paintings’
The opening of a new art-space on this island is always very exciting.
Mark Sullivan, an architect with a passion for art took over a beautiful space in Tigne street, Sliema, and revealed its raw beauty, transforming it into a serious of rooms and together with a team of passionate art lovers planned a program of exhibitions which so far has wowed patrons and collectors.
R Gallery’s last show, AWOL, was a group exhibition of international contemporary artists - multimedia practitioners, namely Maxine Attard, Charlie Cauchi, Romeo Roxman Gatt and Duška Maleševic whose work is informed by the plethora of interpretations of AWOL (absent without leave/absent from where one should be; missing) curated
by the gallery’s Creative Director, contemporary artist Julien Vinet.
The show, which opened on the 12th of December and ran until February 11th 2023, saw hundreds of visitors, from the seasoned gallery goer to the art novice. As part of the gallery’s mission to act as a catalytic connector between artists, art and the community, each month an event is held as part of a series called R Talks, which invites poets, musicians, artists and others from across the artistic realms to interpret the works for an intimate evening.
On the 26th January 2023, the gallery held R Talks 3.2: AWOL: A night of sound by Claire Tonna. Tonna, a prolific singersongwriter, shared her words, songs and thoughts in connection to AWOL and the rich pool of interpretations that emerge through it. Inspired by the
works presented by the four artists, Tonna opened her inner world to us for an intimate and magnetic night of sound at the gallery.
“I often found myself disappearing from noise, chaos, norms, words, thoughts and actions; it is how I survived. It’s how I can listen to the terror of beauty and power that lies inside me,” she said. “I share songs and writings that emerged from such journeys and transfigurations.”
Claire Tonna is a queer Maltese singer and songwriter renowned internationally for her distinctively contralto voice and writing, considered to be one that transmits the plural facets of human emotion and empowerment.
Tonna’s works and performances have been taking place all over the globe in the last two decades inside theatres, festivals, lgbtqi spaces, prisons, slums, refugee centres, mental hospitals and many other spaces resonating with her truth-filled music and vocation.
If visual art could talk, Claire Tonna would be it’s interpreterWork by Charlie Cauchi Photographs from the series titled ‘Bonjour Tristesse’ by Duška Maleševic
The facets of her presence and voice are acclaimed to present the audience an experience of incomparable empowerment. In 2019 she won the title and award of ‘Best European Singer/ Songwriter’ rewarded by the Tour Music Fest, Sony (Italy) and Berklee College from Boston, United States. In 2023 Tonna is releasing her new material and sound composed in the last transfigurative years.
“I sing what heals my broken bones and sing them in the one voice we are; Human,” she finished.
JD: Please tell me how the art talked to you?
CT: The theme featured in the works ‘absence without leave’ (AWOL), ‘dissapearing’ definitely a resonated with my recent writing and the personal experiences that it reflects. I do find ‘dissappearing’ to often be a means of survival. Disappearing from the noise, people, thoughts, so I can listen to what is inside me and cater for my needs and my need for peace. So it was very easy
to hear the art talking to me and in a way seeing my own experience in it.
JD: Can you verbalize the process from experiencing the works to your artistic reaction to them?
CT: I entered the gallery with my journal and just let my pen translate my first encounter with the art work into words. I basically translated the works into songs. I have done this other times at Austin Camillieri’s ‘Leiva: anger is a lazy form of grief’ where I translated the rooms into songs and also at the ‘pelvic laboratory’ residency where I translated dance and movement into words and songs. At AWOL my artistic reaction was once again transcribed into songwriting and singing the works birthed from the work itself and all the works transferred to me. Sharing them with an audience was once again another reaction to the core element that unites us all in the very themes presented. It was a most powerful and intimate experience to live through, such transferring from artist to art work to song to the people’s own hearts.
JD: How did it feel to be in the space and give your all?
CT: It felt like home, bare, real, belonged, liberating.
JD: Do we need more of this? Of a conversation between artists using their media?
CT: Yes definitely. Such conversations connect us all on so many various planes. It’s art and the expression of the human experience shared, and it connects our own humanity, our pain, hope, trust and belongingness. We converse like this naturally but when we converse with such deep truths it becomes a healing experience where we live a human connection that is often lost or hard to find in the world that we live in.
Translating the artwork into song added to the experience of the artworks delivery to every person there, deeper than just an audible deliverance. It was a connecting means for the very human heart we together are.
“I often found myself disappearing from noise, chaos, norms, words, thoughts and actions; it is how I survived. It’s how I can listen to the terror of beauty and power that lies inside me”
Claire Tonna
Review /Exhibition / Katya Saunders / Malta Gay Rights Movement
MALTAHeld at Spazju Kreattiv Valletta between the 17th December 2022 and the 22nd January 2023 complimented by the official launch of her biography, penned by Ramona Depares and produced by the Malta Gay Rights Movement (MGRM), the exhibition which brought the iconic Katya back to the realm of the fabulous was curated by Romeo Roxman Gatt and Charlie Cauchi. Although as they themselves admit, the person of interest herself was a very real contributor to the curation.
The material and asomatous installations alike oozed the spirit of a confidant rebel who seemed to be capable of orchestrating and moulding social realities, albeit painfully at times, into inspiring change and opened the range of perception of a nation which not only allowed her to be, but also paved the yellow brick path for queer persons who came after her.
Through video, documentary, photos, installations and cabinet-of-curiosity styled artifacts the audience gets a glimpse of the strategy, direction and curation of a life lived to the full. The exhibition allowed some layers to be peeled off the glamorous, well made up and sunglass ornate facade although every work also alludes to the many other layers few even knew existed.
The responsibility that comes with representing such a strong and complex figure through various media in a cohesive yet moving way is not to be underestimated.
I caught up with the curators after the show for some of their thoughts.
Charlie Cauchi‘I’ve had the iconic poster of Kayta’s Tugulio performance on my wall for many years. I’d always wanted to make a piece of work – be that a film or another medium – about her. Sadly, I never got to do this when she was still alive. When
Reimagining Katya Saunders
MGRM were looking for curators to work on a show about her as part of a book launch, both Romeo and I jumped at the chance.
The Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor had an affected speaking style. She was renowned for calling everyone “Dahlink”. Katya, knowingly or not (though I think it’s safe to assume she knew exactly what she was doing), was also known to pronounce darling in the
same way as Gabor. It was her close friend Anthony who pointed it out. “You know”, he said, “she said darling with a K”.
We knew we had our title to the exhibition there and then. It just says so much about her: how she embraced celebrity, her iconic stature, and her playfulness. These are all elements that we wanted the exhibition to highlight.
It was not an easy show to curate for many reasons, chiefly to do with time and resources. It took us a while to be able to look at her collection fully, and she left a great deal behind, as we all do I suppose. Also, we were dealing with someone who is not here to represent themselves and who has left a lot of people that love her behind. So we really considered every item that was displayed carefully.
However, with Katya, it felt like she knew someone would one day curate a show about her. It was as if she guided us on what to include in the exhibition. We also didn’t just want to display clothes and ephemera, of which there was a great deal. We wanted to create new works inspired by her life and personality. And some of the things she left behind were artworks in themselves. Her shoeboxes, for example - each one covered in her cursive script, providing guidance and affirmation. “Gold heel to be worn with Jackie O outfit”, reads one, “Fabulous darling”, asserts another.
Included in the show was an interview with her close friend Anthony. In some ways, he is the guide through the whole exhibition. We also wanted to involve members of the trans community, so we created a video work in collaboration with several trans women, asking them to reflect on Katya’s life and to discuss their own trans journies.
The response was really special. Many of her family and friends emailed or messaged to say that they felt her presence throughout the exhibition, which was really very important to us.’
Romeo Roxman Gatt‘When MGRM put this call out Charlie and I really felt it was a project that we needed to do. We understood the importance of this show and we knew that we could deliver something that would be done with utmost sensitivity, care and most importantly (although we would never really know,) make Katya proud. We also felt that one of the most important things to acknowledge is that
She said Darling with a K:
DR JOANNA DELIA
“It felt like she knew someone would one day curate a show about her. It was as if she guided us on what to include in the exhibition.”Image donated by Antony Sultana Charlie Cauchi
this show, despite being first and foremost about Katya and her life needed to also tackle the broader issues around trans discourse and include as well as involve other people from the trans community and give them a voice.
There is no question that Katya was a beautifully intriguing human being and her aesthetic played a huge part of who she was however we knew that Katya’s persona went way deeper than this. She was one of the first openly trans women in Malta and went through immense hurdles (even if with a touch of class and elegance). What she had to go though as a trans women back then is not at all easy both mentally and physically and I guess that gives hope to many of us trans people going through a similar experience at this age and time. She is our special trancestor! Things have changed considerably especially when thinking of the
legality of it all however I feel the question that continues to persist is — how are trans people still being perceived and treated socially?
Trans people continue to face judgement, hate, and often struggle to go through their basic day to day lives. I believe that much more needs to be invested in education. We hope that this show opened up a space for people to be seen and not from a pity kind of perspective but rather from an empowering and celebratory point of view as well as that it taught a few things along the way.
It was a pure pleasure to be met with so much ephemera and content in relation to a trans person; all of Katya’s content that has been preserved is a blessing for our island’s queer history and archives.’
“Her aesthetic played a huge part of who she was however we knew that Katya’s persona went way deeper than this”
Romeo Roxman Gatt
ZfinMalta DOUBLE BILL
Thoughts on OKOKOK and Nuova
Figura
OKOKOK, by international artist and performer Marco D’Agostin, opened the second weekend of ZfinDays 2023, with a slap in the face. The piece is a stern, powerful and beautifully composed provocation, well representing the qualities which made this multitalented artist popular in the high circles of contemporary culture, including the Biennale di Venezia. Like a Shumon Basar of performative arts, D’Agostin bombards the audience with a seamless sequence of iconic movements and refrains revealing the most callous spirit of the entertainment industry, and of our consumeristic society more in general, spanning from Ryanair flights announcements to Heather Parisi’s dance moves. The piece brings to mind one publication of Basar in particular, The Age of Earthquakes (2015, coauthored with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist), not only for its sardonic, borderline-cynical approach
to ‘the extreme present’, but also for its the merciless pace, constantly on the verge of spiraling out control. The resulting uneasiness triggers a greatly needed moment of reflection on the hyper-spectacular age we live in and succeeds in revealing ‘the deafening silence in which we all move when we try to entertain someone’.
Nuova Figura, by ZfinMalta’s Artistic Director Paolo Mangiola, reacts to the uncompromising and coldhearted environment portrayed by D’ Agostin with an elusive and highly evocative exploration of imaginary worlds, inspired by the maps drawn by Gozitan cartographer, astronomer and astrologer Antonino Saliba in 1582.
The radical change of atmosphere on stage transports the audience away from the ‘extreme present’ and into a fantastic imaginative world. Extended and gracefully rounded movements encourage the audience to release the tension, to regain strength and to follow the dancers in an atemporal journey through natural chaos and order, culminating in a declaration of hope and desire for better things to come. Mangiola and the dancers draw an introspective cartography of human perspectives on the present-day image of the world, with a sophistication that reminds of the films that Weyes Blood sings about.
The two pieces result in an engaging, challenging and at times contradictory show which celebrates the inspiring diversity of the programme of ZfinMalta and which attracts an equally diverse public. As recently stated by Mangiola, “ZfinDays is for everyone, dance lovers and newcomers. Experience works that are physically challenging and emotionally charged; laced with irony and high on drama. Works that, above all, showcase the great versatility of our company dancers, through choreographers whose names are currently filling theatres across Europe. ZfinDays is six nights of dance where audiences can expect to be inspired, entertained and above all moved.”
, presented as part of ZfinDays 2023, earlier this February. .
Spotlight /African Art /Artists and Galleries /Angola
BUILDING ANGOLA THROUGH ART MARKED BY ITS RECENT POLITICAL HISTORY
Recently obtaining the title of third largest economy in sub–Saharan Africa, oil-rich Angola in Southern Africa boasts a very young and spirited art-scene. Winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale 2013 when it participated for the first time under the curatorship of Paula Nascimento and artist Edson Chagas, it surely has been growing a lot of internationally acclaimed artists since. It’s of no surprise, following the ministry of culture’s recent priority to strengthen
Angolan culture as a nation-building tool following decades of civil war until 2002.
At the forefront of the Angolan artscene is undeniably Antonio Ole who curated Angola’s Pavilion in the 56th and 57th Venice Biennale as both artist and curator; main curator at the 2015 56th edition and as artist for the 2017 57th edition with the title ‘Magnetic Memory/ Historical Resonance’. Angolan art is fast becoming an integral part of the global art-scene with galleries opening and a new generation of artists
appearing, feeling more respected globally than it has ever felt before. It is during these times that galleries were being founded in Luanda. Although the Tamar Golan gallery launched in 2012, more contemporary art galleries started to launch around the city, starting from Espaco Luanada Arte (which now also hosts the Angola AIR residency program) and Movart in 2015, to This is Not a White Cube in 2016 and the Jahmek Contemporary Art in 2018.
The independent and very important art foundation Nesr Art Foundation and residency programme was born in 2021, providing a ‘space for artistic research, production, and critical discourse through its residencies, collection, and educational projects, centred around a creative hub located in Luanda, Angola.’ This came at a time following the demise of the Sindika Dpkolo Foundation, which was founded by the late Sindika Dokolo and his wife Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s former president, who was found guilty of money laundering and corruption at the expense of the Angolan state in 2020. Before 2020, this was the only place artists looked up to for funding as there was always little infrastructure for artists in Angola, leaving many artists
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.
searching for opportunities outside the country. The artistic committee at the NESR Foundation is chaired by very important names in the African art world. They are Paula Nascimento and Fernanda Brenner, Tandazani Dhlakama and Azu Nwagbogu.
Angolan history, social aspects of Angola, urban archaeology and architecture, repurposing objects as well as afro-surrealism are among the top subjects visualised by Angolan artists. Angolan history is dominant in Adriano Cangombe’s work in context of the civil war whilst Kiluanji Kia Hendra studies it in the context of how it was impacted by colonialism and new identities, Helena Uambembe studying it in context of history and place and Sandra Poulson studying the relationship its history has with oral tradition and global political structures. When it comes to Angolan society in art, we note the work of Osvaldo Ferreira in the context of intergenerational continuity and discontinuity with regards to social experiences and Binelde Hyrcan’s critiquing structures of power and human vanity. Elyina Gaspar captures human rights and social protests through her photographic work whilst multi-disciplinary artist Pamina
Sebastiao takes on gender and sexuality. Alice Marcelino and Fidel Evora’s works focus on identity.
Urban archaeology and effective geologies is the interest of filmmaker, artist and researcher Mónica de Miranda whilst street photographer Rui Magalhães and multidisciplinary artist Ihosvanny are more interested in architectural history. Toy Boy and Yonamine’s work focuses on urbanization and pop culture. Some artists also seem to work on objects when seen in different contexts. Kiluanji Kia Henda’s work focuses on identities past and future like when he repurposes plinths, Delio Jasse uses found images with clues from past lives and Tiago Borges tales away objects and images from their original contexts, grouping them in ways that provoke. Known to be ‘one of the most exciting artists of his generation’, Nastio Mosquito’s work is about the dynamics between feeling, knowing, acting and being- engaging with reality at all levels.
We’re looking forward to seeing what these art galleries and artists will be up to in 2023, in Luanda and beyond. Make sure to follow these artists and galleries to get to know the latest from these artists.
Spotlight / Events / Global
March - May 2023
EXHIBITIONS
A selection of art events from around the world
11.02.23
Until 30 July 2023
ULYSSES JENKINS: WITHOUT YOUR INTERPRETATION
The Julia Stoschek Foundation presents the European premiere of Ulysses Jenkins: Without Your Interpretation, the first major retrospective of the work of groundbreaking video and performance artist Ulysses Jenkins. Organised closely with the artist - including the digitization of a sprawling archive and conversations with Ulysses Jenkins and his collaborators - the exhibition encompasses a broad range of over fifteen videos and almost sixty works in total that showcase his collaborations, mural paintings, photography, and performances, revealing the scope of Jenkins’s practice. Among the many video works of the exhibition is Mass of Images (1978), an innovative video art piece that critiques the media’s role in perpetuating racist and harmful images of the African diaspora in the United States. Like other works in the exhibition, it is grounded in issues that remain at the heart of contemporary conversations about inequality and environmental devastation amplified by unchecked capitalism, governmental oppression, and the impact of systemic racism on Black cultural production.
Julia Stoschek Collection, Leipziger Strasse 60, Berlin Ulysses Jenkins, Without Your Interpretation rehearsal documentation, 1984
22.02.23
Until 7 May 2023
MIKE NELSON: EXTINCTION
03.23-05.23
BECKONS
The first major survey of work by internationally acclaimed British artist Mike Nelson features his psychologically charged and atmospheric installations. Nelson’s installations take the viewer on enthralling journeys into fictive worlds that eerily echo our own. Constructed with materials scavenged from salvage yards, junk shops, auctions and flea markets, the immersive installations have a startling life-like quality. Utterly transforming the spaces of the Hayward Gallery, the exhibition features sculptural works and new versions of key large-scale installations, many of which are shown here for the first time since their original presentations.
Nelson represented Great Britain at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 and has shown in leading galleries around the world. He has also been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including the 13th Biennale of Sydney, the 8th Istanbul Biennial and the 13th Lyon Biennale.
Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Rd, London, SE1 8XX, UK
23.02.23
Until 30 July 2023
GIAN MARIA TOSATTI: NOW/HERE
Pirelli HangarBicocca presents NOw/here the solo exhibition by Gian Maria Tosatti. Two impressive painting cycles: with these new textured, abstract, largeformat works, the artist offers the public a “sentimental retrospective,” revealing his painting practice for the first time.
For Tosatti, the exhibition becomes an opportunity to address aspects of current events as well as the human condition at such a difficult moment in time, in a society poised between catastrophe and evolution. These works are also conceived as “mirrors,” open questions that directly confront the visitor.
Pirelli HangarBicocca, Via Chiese, 2, Milan, Italy
Copyright: © Photo Ela Bialkowska, OKNOstudio
27.04.23
Until 30 April 2023
PAPER
POSITIONS BERLIN
The seventh edition of the art fair ‘paper positions berlin’ will feature over 50 international galleries presenting unique and powerful artworks that highlight the creative potential of paper and push the boundaries of the medium.
The multifaceted works, whether created in pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, watercolor and gouache, or in the form of collages, silhouettes, autographs or sculptures, show the artists inside at their most spontaneous and artistically liberated moments. In their intimacy, vulnerability and immediacy, the works on paper benefit from the exclusive attention they receive at this specialised art fair.
Hangars 5 and 6 of the former Tempelhof Airport, Berlin
DrawingRoom, Hanna Hennenkemper, Tage danach, 2013, Buntstifte auf Papier. Courtesy of the gallery
Spotlight / Events / Malta
March - May 2023
EXHIBITIONS
Curated events in Malta
03.03.23
Until 3 April 2023
RITUALS OF PASSAGE
Rituals are part of everyday life. During times of distress, they give comfort. The title is based on the fact that rituals can bring you from one stage to another physically and mentally. Post-covid rituals can help us find balance in a disrupted society where attention to mental health and well-being has become important. Rituals can help make us name and discuss these issues. The artists created the works with the exhibition space in mind, presenting them in such a way that they interact with each other and that they challenge the viewer, offering context for the audience to create their own story. During the opening weekend some works will be accompanied by a performance and a discussion session about the meaning of rituals will be organized, followed by a meet and greet with the artists.
Curated by Ann Laenen and Stefan Kolgen. Participating Artists: Ryan Falzon (MT), Aaron Bezzina (MT), Alexandra Fraser (UK), Yasmine Akondo (BE), Mladen Hadžic (SRB), and Stefan Kolgen (BE). Supported by the Flemish Community, Sint Lucas Antwerpen and Valletta Contemporary.
Valletta Contemporary, 15, 16, 17 East Street, Valletta www.vallettacontemporary.com
03.03.23
Until 6 May 2023
IRREGULARITY
03.23-05.23
Irregularity features a series of artworks by JP Migneco that explore the relationship between natural and artificial environments. The body of work involves a process of reinterpreting landscapes that are found near coastal areas in Malta, through the use of photography, drawing, digital media and painting. A method for mapping and tracing images of landforms is used to extract different shapes and tones to form fragmented compositions that combine elements of the natural and the artificial. This process involves the use of irregular polygonal grids which derive inspiration from models of fractal terrain and biomorphic architecture.The theme of this project delves into notions related to urbanisation and the advancement of technology. Therefore, the work attempts to evoke issues related to human-environment interaction in the digital age.
Valletta Contemporary, 15, 16, 17 East Street, Valletta www.vallettacontemporary.com
14.04.23
Until 29 April 2023
EVERYDAY PEOPLE
London-based Maltese artist IELLA (Daniela Attard) showcases 15 years of life drawing (from age 18 to the present) from an illustrator’s stylistic approach. Follow the artist’s journey through the early days at evening sessions at the Malta Society of the Arts to the vibrant life drawing scene of London, where she honed her skills in capturing the essence of their subjects by attending life drawing sessions around the city. From portraits to nudes, each piece showcases the unique joy of life drawing as a discipline but also as means of building creative muscle memory for more significant projects and illustration pieces.
Space A, Spazju Kreattiv, Castille Place, Valletta https://www.kreattivita.org/events/
12.05.23
Until 29 May 2023
VIA: THE WAY OF THE STREETS
VIA: The way through which one passes. The pictures presented in this exhibition with works by Jacob Sammut document the human element in the streets, describing life to date. It stands not only to teach people today what our lives are like but also to stand as a tool to educate those who get to see the photos in the years to come. The small selection of images used in this first edition of ‘VIA’ has been chosen from a vast archive of work that I started working on in 2014. The photographs are to be treated as documents to be preserved and archived for future generations to see. They were shot using 35mm or 120 medium-format, black and white film, which were then developed and hand-printed on fibre based paper in the darkroom.
Christine X Curated, Tigne street c/w Hughes Hallet street, Sliema www.christinexcurated.com
