Raphael Vella

Raphael Vella is an artist, educator and curator based in Malta. He has exhibited his works in international exhibitions and venues, including the Venice Biennale, Domaine Pommery (Reims, France) and Modern Art Oxford and has curated many group and solo exhibitions in Malta and internationally. He was art critic for the Malta Independent between 1992 and 2000 and won the Commonwealth Art and Craft award (London) in 1998. He was artist-in-residence at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand for a year in 2000 and was a founding member of the artists’ group StART in the early 2000s. Raphael Vella was Fulbright scholar in 2001 and has lectured at the University of Malta since 2003. In 2012-13 he was Artistic Programme Director for Valletta 2018 Foundation, the entity responsible for the European Capital of Culture in 2018. He has published numerous articles and catalogue essays about contemporary art, culture and education and initiated many artistic projects, educational ventures and international exchanges that have helped to transform the cultural scene in Malta, like Divergent Thinkers, the Curatorial School, the Valletta International Visual Arts festival (VIVA) and many projects involving undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Malta. ^[1]

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2017: A Safe Haven, Art Gallery of Burlington, Ontario, Canada;
2016: No Place like Home, EU Delegation Building, Washington DC, US;
2016: Drawings, Architecture Project Building, Valletta;
2014-15: Raising a Revolutionary, Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw;
2013: Museum Haus Hővener, Brilon, Germany;
2012: Installation, Zona Imaginaria, Buenos Aires, Argentina;
2011-12: Aux Armes, in collaboration with Baptiste Debombourg, St James Cavalier, Valletta;
2011: Big Boys, Nakagawa Gallery, Ginza, Tokyo, Japan;
2008: Reading Cabinets, St James Cavalier, Valletta;
2008: L’Art (Contemporain) en Europe, Domaine Pommery, Reims, France. Curator: François Bousteau, chief editor of Beaux Arts Magazine;
2007: Reading Cabinets, solo exhibition at Modern Art Oxford, UK, curated by Allia Ali;
2004: A Horse for Airing the Gods, four-metre tall sculpture installed on the Lange Voorhout as part of The Hague Sculpture, in The Hague, Holland. Other participating artists: Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, Wim Delvoye, and several others;
2001: Open Studio, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, VA, USA;
2000: Talking about Silence, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch, New Zealand;
2000: Books with Nothing to say, School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2017 White Memory– 1989/2018: Art in Malta and Poland , Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta. Curated by Irene Biolchini and Marinella Paderni.
2017: Human Matter, Palazzo de la Salle, Valletta. Curated by Joe Philippe Abela, Roderick Camilleri and Elyse Tonna;
2015: Drifting Clouds: An Exhibition of Artists’ Books, Hadjigiorgagkis Kornesios Museum, Nicosia, Cyprus;
2015: Afterselfie, curated by Carolina Bartolotti, Palazzo Trentini, Trento, Italy, and St James Cavalier, Valletta, Malta;
2013: Hermetik, Fort Tigme’, Sliema, curated by Michael Bock;
2013: Personal Structures,curated by Francesca Crudo, Sarah Gold, Carol Rolla and Valeria Romagnini, Venice Biennale;
2013: An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street, Group show of book artists, curated by Beau Beausoleil, touring John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK, San Francisco Center for the Book and Center for Book Arts, New York, USA;
2012-2013: Stemperando, biennale of drawings organised by Verso L’Arte and the Istituto Nazionale d’Arte Contemporanea: Torino, Rome, Cosenza;
2012: WiccImbWicc, Malta Arts Festival, curated by Austin Camilleri;
2012: Mis-information, exhibition forming part of Bath Art Festival, curated by Diana Ali, Bath, England (May-June);
2011: I Fought the X and the X Won, National Museum of Fine Arts, Cluj, Romania and National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta (participating artist and curator);
2010: Exhibition, Alte Saline, Hallein, Austria, curated by Destiny Deacon;
2009: Eight Eighteen, Malta Contemporary Art, Marsa, curated by Mark Mangion;
2008-9: The Last Book, National Library, Buenos Aires, Argentina, curated by Luis Camnitzer.

Art Residencies

2012: Zona Imaginaria, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2008 Artists’ colony, Zagorje, Slovenia;
2004: One-month residency at Konstepidemin, Goteborg, Sweden;
2001: Six-week fellowship at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, USA;
2000: One year as artist-in-residence and visiting scholar at School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Curation of exhibitions

2017: Homo Melitensis: An Incomplete Inventory in 19 Chapters, Co-Curator of Malta Pavilion at Venice Biennale (with Bettina Hutschek);
2016: Divergent Thinkers 5, artistic and educational project in collaboration with Youkobo Art Space (Tokyo), Japan Media Arts Festival, and Malta Maritime Museum, Birgu;
2016: InSitu, University of Malta;
2016: Building Futures, University of Malta;
2016: No Man’s Land Centro Centro Cibeles, Madrid, MADATAC festival;
2015: Divergent Thinkers 4, St James cavalier Centre for Creativity, Valletta;
2015: Good Walls Make Good Neighbours, St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Valletta;
2014: Cause & Effect, Mieke Bal and Michelle Williams Gamaker, St James Cavalier, Valletta;
2014: Ser y Durar (To be and to Last), Democracy (Madrid-based artists’ group), St James Cavalier, Malta;
2014: Zoographics, Katharina Swoboda, St James Cavalier, Valletta;
2014: Divergent Thinkers 3, BLITZ Gallery, Valletta;
2013: Din Mhix Tazza, organised by Virginia Monteforte, with participation of four Maltese artists and members of Bormla community;
2013: Divergent Thinkers 2 , exhibition of emerging Maltese artists, St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, Malta;
2012: Divergent Thinkers, exhibition by emerging Maltese artists, curated for Aġenzija Żgħażagħ in collaboration with St James Cavalier, centre for Creativity;
2012: Métamorphoses, exhibition at Maltese Embassy in Paris;
2012: Tarohei Nakagawa Photography, exhibition of photographic portraits by Japanese photographer Tarohei Nakagawa, National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta;
2012: Omen, paintings by Darren Tanti, St James Cavalier, Valletta;
2012: Works of Art in Schools, selected works from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta tour six Primary schools around Malta. Educational activities organised in collaboration with teachers and heads of schools;
2012: School Prints Project, lithographs by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Dufy, Moore and Léger tour primary and secondary schools, St Michael Foundation;
2011: I Fought the X and the X Won, curated for National Museum of Fine Arts, Cluj, Romania and National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta. International artists from Japan, Austria, Malta, Romania, Slovakia, China, France, USA, Albania, etc;
2010: Relocation: Emerging Maltese artists, Bank of Valletta Centre;
2009: I in 3D, Second Life exhibition in collaboration with German digital artist Reiner Schneeberger, St James Cavalier, Valletta.

Selected articles and books

Vella,R. (2017) “A Pedagogy of Dialogue: Curating and Artistic Education”, in Fritzsche, M. and Schnurr. A. (eds.) (2017), Fokussierte Komplexität: Ebenen von Kunst und Bildung, Oberhausen: ATHENA-Verlag, pp. 45-53.
Vella, R. (2016) Artist-Teachers in Context: International Dialogues, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam.
Vella, R. (2016) “Becoming the Middle Sea: Portraits of the Mediterranean in Art Education”, International Journal of Education through Art, vol. 12(1).
Vella, R. (2015) :Re-imagining Classrooms: Educational Environments in Contemporary Art“, International Journal of Education & the Arts, vol. 16(12),
Vella, R. (2015) “(Re)portraying art and learning in the Mediterranean”, Diálogos com a Arte: revista de arte, cultura e educação, vol. 4, pp. 8-16.
Vella, R. (2014) “An apprenticeship in resistance: Art, education and book burning” in My teaching, my philosophy: Kenneth Wain and the lifelong engagement with education, eds. J. Baldacchino, S. Galea & D. Mercieca, Peter Lang, New York, pp. 200-214.
Vella, R. (2014) “Avoiding ‘a kind of physics’: Arts-based educational research”, Malta Review of Educational Research, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 294-311.
Vella, R. and Baldacchino, J. (2013) Mediterranean Art and Education: Navigating local, regional and global imaginaries through the lens of the arts and learning (Sense publishers, 2013).
Vella, R. (2013) “Errant identities in contemporary art education”, in R.Mason and C-P Buschkuhle (Eds.) Images and Identity: Educating Citizenship through Visual arts, Intelect: Bristol, UK and
Vella, R. (2013) “Kunst und nationales Selbstverständnis auf Malta: Wie sich der Inselstaat mit der europäischen Identität arrangiert”, in K. Bering et al (eds.), Visual Learning: positionen im internationalen Vergleich, ATHENA Verlag: Oberhausen, 324-335., US
Mason, R, and Vella, R. (2013) “Lessons about identity formation from contemporary art”, International Journal of Education through Art 9:2, pp. 235-252
Vella, R. and Borg, C. (2012), Shooting Society: Documenting Contemporary Life in Malta (Midsea Publications)
Vella, R. (2011) “Coming to terms with a European identity in a small island State: Art and Citizenship in Malta”, Dialogos com a Arte 2, pp 154-164
Vella, R. (2012) “Art education and the art of misunderstanding”, in C-P Buschkuhle (Ed.), Kunstlerische Kunstpadagogik, Athena, Germany.
Vella, R. (2008), Cross-Currents: Critical Essays on Art and Culture in Malta (Allied Publications)
Vella, R. (2008) “Une emancipation bienvenue”, in L’art contemporain en Europe, BeauxArts Editions: Paris
Vella, R. (2008) “The Intonation of Maltese Contemporary Art”, in Arrivals> Art from the New Europe, Modern Art Oxford and Turner Contemporary.
Vella, R. (2008), “Why are there no great women artists (in the new Advanced Art syllabus)?”, Malta Review of Educational Research, Issue 1, 2008.
Vella, R. (2006), On Art and Art Education in Malta (Allied Publications)
Vella, R. (2004), “Translating the avant-garde into Esperanto”, Malta Review of Educational Research, Issue 1.

External links

Official Website

References

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↑ http://raphaelvella.com/biography/

[1] ttp://raphaelvella.com/biography/

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