Past! Present. Future? (book)/Cluster 1
Any art collection has a number of works that define it in a way that were they all to be exhibited together you would get a better understanding of why the collection exists. In the case of the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection, there are a number of works by artists who were either already established before they first exhibited at the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity and others by a number of artists who have similarly become established in recent years, particularly through their association with Spazju Kreattiv.
The inaugural exhibition held at the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in 2000 was entitled Art in Malta. This included works by 40 (TK) modern and contemporary artists active in Malta at that time. It was curated by Joseph Paul Cassar, who coordinated the visual arts programme at the centre for the first five years or so.
A handful of artists whose work appeared in that exhibition have eventually also entered the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection with another piece.
One of the works from that exhibition was a very peculiar piece by the living dogen of sculpture in Malta at that time. Vincent Apap exhibited a plaster bust of his brother Willie as a young boy, who eventually made a mark for himself as an artist in his own right. This bust was made in 1930 and had never been exhibited before 2000. After this exhibition, the artist gave Fondazzjoni Kreattività the right to make a bronze cast of this bust of Willie Apap aged 12 years. Since 2016 has been displayed permanently in a prominent place within St James Cavalier, honouring the artist’s own wish, which was expressed just a few months before he died in 2003, in a letter to the Fondazzjoni Ċentru Għall-Kreattività’s first chairman Chris Grech.
Another bronze bust that has gone through a similar adventure in the process of entering the Fondazzjoni Kreattività collection was made by Anton Agius. Best known for his monumental works around Malta, Agius was among the artists whose work was exhibited in the 2000 exhibition Art in Malta Now. (TK) A bust of the eminent twentieth-century Maltese playwright Francis Ebejer he made in the 1960s, eventually led to the full body lifesize bronze statue of the writer that now appears in his hometown, Dingli. This plaster bust of Ebejer by Agius appeared in a Spazju Kreattiv exhibition that stemmed from a research project in collaboration with the M3P Foundation exploring the relationship between the Francis and his son Damian. Ebejer: A Research Project comprised an oral history interview, digitization of a number of photos from Ebejer’s personal collection, and an exhibition that featured visual art works by both Francis and Damian, as well as a number of other items from both their written works.
After the Ebejer exhibition came to an end, Damian offered it for inclusion in the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection. However, it became evident that the more appropriate thing to do was to cast it in bronze and leave the plaster original with the Ebejer family, who will undoubtedly treasure it for generations to come. Once the bust of Francis Ebejer by Anton Agius was cast in bronze, it too found itself on permanent display in a prominent place at St James Cavalier, just a couple of meters away from the Apap bust. Both these bronze casts were created by Joe Chectcuti.
These two bronze busts are among the four works exhibited permanently within St James Cavalier. The other two are Apollo 5 by Victor Pasmore and CHECKNAME by Gabriel Caruana (see CLUSTER 5).
Although Victor Pasmore (1908-1998) never set foot inside the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, he was a very strong presence in Malta's modern art scene for a number of decades in the latter part of the last century. His work can be found in a number of major art collections around the world, including Tate, Royal Academy of Art - London, and several other regional galleries across the United Kingdom, such as the University of Salford Art Collection. This is therefore the first work in Fondazzjoni Kreattività’s Art Collection that has a significant international dimension. (see also CLUSTER 6)
Although women artists were noticeably underrepresented in the Art in Malta Today exhibition, it is significant to note that within the first couple of years that works started entering the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection, three of the most prominent artists working at the turn of the century held solo exhibitions and the St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity and thus had pieces from their respective exhibitions enter the collection along with those by Apap and Pasmore.
Isabelle Borg’s Blue Pyramid, Debbie Caruana Dingli’s Festive Scene, and Anna Grima’s Twelve Thoughts On the Path to Integration all entered the collection before Jean Zaleski’s Mnemonic Icons No. 2, which was donated by the artist after her 2002 exhibition Malta: Memories and Explorations. All these works have featured prominently in Spazju Kreattiv’s exhibitions associated with the Art+Feminism initiative, easding to the creation of Wikipedia articles about each of these four artist, in an attempt to address the gender gap.
Lisa Grech’s No More Mdina Landscapes was also prominently featured in the 2019 edition of Art+Feminism at Spazju Kreattiv. It originally entered the collection in 2004, [TK] after what was ostensibly her first solo exhibition. This work is an excellent example of the range of works within the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection. Falzon has made a name for herself internationally as a professional illustrator. For the national collection of her country of birth to hold such an early work by this artist is a remarkable achievement. This is particularly relevant not only in the context of addressing the gender gap, which is the main intention of the Art+Feminism initiative, but also the emergence of digital art in Malta (see cluster 5), with which Falzon has an inevitable relationship, owing to the use of digital technology in the production of most of her works following the 2004 (TK) exhibition.
As can also be seen in other parts of the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection, the type of works acquired over the years include photographic prints. Spazju Kreattiv’s continued engagement with the art photographer Alex Attard is reflected in the fact that two works of his are in the collection from a period ranging a little over two years. The first of these is from the series entitled The Overlooked Performance (2015), which he developed over a number of years while the parliament building designed by Renzo Piano adjacent to St James Cavalier was being built. Soon after that exhibition, Attard was nominated by Spazju Kreattiv for a cultural visit to China, where he found himself working outside his comfort zone. This notion was used as a subtitle to the exhibition of works he created from his visit to China in the summer of 2016. From this 2017 exhibition, the Foundation’s collection has been enriched by the inclusion of a triptych called I Love Great Wall (2016), which depicts an artistic perspective of ordinary graffiti etched by tourists in the Great Wall of China. Both works in the collection have been exhibited internationally after entering the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection. First at the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg (Septembre 2018) and then at the 2019 Ostrale Contemporary Art Biennale in Dresden, Germany.
Other notable photographers whose works are in the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection include Joe P Smith and Darrin Zammit Lupi. Smith’s photo of ŻfinMalta founding artistic director Mavin Khoo is the first official photo of a twenthy-first century artistic director from a public cultural organisation to enter the country’s national art collection. Zammit Lupi’s photo from Isle Landers (2014) continues in the same vein of another of his works that can be seen at MUŻA, through Heritage Malta’s holding in the National Art Collection, depicting the lives of Sub-Saharan African immigrants as they precariously arrive in Malta in search of a better life in Europe.
Both Smith and Zammit Lupi are among the photographers who have captured the Malta Jazz Festival through their lenses. This is relevant her in as much as providing a contextual basis for the 1 meter by 1 meter acrylic on linen painting called Jazz 2 (2004) by Olaug Vethal. This was one of many paintings that Vethal created during the ten year period during which she painted at the Malta Jazz Festival along with fellow artists Jeni Caruana and Ebba von Fersen Balzan.
[insert paragraph here about the need for contextual information about works in the collection and the way that contemporary cultural heritage preservation is an essential element of valorizing the collection beyond the monetary value of a particular piece.]
One more work worth mentioning here has been acquired for the National Art Collection by Heritage Malta through the fund for the acquisition of contemporary art, established in 2015. [more about this fund first...]
Two pieces from Lawrence Buttigieg’s 2017 exhibition Sacred|Profane, were bought by Heritage Malta in consultation with Spazju Kreattiv, after these were exhibited during the Valletta International Visual Art (VIVA) festival. Beyond any artistic and aestheic considerations, these works by Buttigieg mark a significant development in the way works now enter the national art collection. Elsewhere in this book, there are references to works entering the Fondazzjoni Kreattività Art Collection after the organisation consulted with key stakeholders in the sector and ceased to required obligatory donation from every artist that exhibited within its publicly owned and funded premises. Buttigieg’s work is not the first work of contemporary art by a Maltese artist to be bought for accession to the National Collection. However, it is the first time that works of art previously exhibited as part of the Spazju Kreattiv programme have entered the National Collection in this manner.
If nothing else, this matter raises a need to evaluate the ways modern and contemporary works of art enter Malta’s National Art Collectio. This goes well beyond what this publication, and the research initiative associated with it, attempts to do. As outlined towards both the beginning and the end of this book, it is by taking such things into consideration that the Fondazzjoni Kreattività’s Art Collection can continue to be a significant entry point to the national art collection for work of art exhibited within its programmes.
Not yet mentioned in this essay but also included in this cluster
On Arrival (2008) - Debbie Caruana Dingli from 'Dis-' (2018) - Patrick Fenech