The more we create a relationship with our artistic past, our capability to build a present which considers its own particular beauty will flourish profoundly, and thus we will be able to engender a rich artistic heritage for future generations. Without this, unfortunately, we can only produce the rubbish we have been producing in recent times and which I am constantly writing about.
Malta's artistic history, like the general history of these islands, is replete with intriguing contradictions, especially in Malta's isolation from continental and global developments, yet at the same time Malta formed an integral part of the progressive and radical developments of globalization due to the presence of worldly powers in our country.
For example, whilst being under the absolute power of a medieval and feudal Church, there was also the British regime, which symbolized values which were violently in contrast to those of the enormous power held by the Church in Maltese society; values of free trade, liberal freedoms, and radical capitalism, amongst many other elements.
Therefore, there were two powers set against each other which found an interesting way of coexisting throughout a particular period of our history and this was obviously reflected and even integrated in the history of art of our country. The complications are even more profound because apart from this essentially contradictory relationship between two giant powers there was also the fundamental Maltese Italian culture confronting the onslaught of a new culture.
It would be a grave mistake to interpret this genetic connection with Italy as something external, as foreign to us. Obviously, English political hegemony succeeded in, due to power interests, erasing these geopolitical cultural genetics from our collective memory, something which formed an integral part of the Italian geopolitical cultural structure. However, at the same time the violent progress of capitalism led to the positive accord of these Italian genetics with those of Britain.
In their beautiful and paradoxical way, these contradictions were and are essential to understand and analyse the artistic situation. And in the same paradoxical manner these different and contradictory levels created that which is today considered as Maltese.
To take sides would be a genetic disaster in our development.
The contradictions which were reflected in the works of Josef Kalleya, Antonio Sciortino, Dun Karm, Juann Mamo and others make no sense if one does not understand the argument that I am trying to make clear. Mental stability and points of reference prior to the 20th century were steady and dug their own roots.
The introduction of the English language together with politics which went against the preceding 'normal' evolution naturally had a tsunami effect on our consciousness: Maltese Italianite culture began to develop within the climate of radical British values - facing the problems which affected the Italian identity and beyond, especially during the Second World War.
Not only this: everything began to take place when all of Europe's artistic development was passing through the most beautiful disasters ever faced by the European world. The European modernist revolution exploded and a new era began, and we are today living in the shadow of this new era. This explosion happened at the same moment when Maltese culture began to be conscious of its own identity. Meaning that when global European culture cracked and the process of the total deconstruction of all possible values which were previously sacrosanct and taboo, when all at once everything crashed, at this exact moment Maltese culture began to find its own artistic language, its own values and auto-definition: clarity in a world of total collapse.
To further understand this mosaic-like chaos which was developing, we must remember how all this was reflected economically in an alarming manner. There was extreme poverty and urbanization of the port area; on the one hand there was modern technology and workers who were able to run it, and on the other the għonnella, to state this point symbolically.
At the same time that there were rural parts in a world of primitivism, one could say savage, there was the train, the magnificent Upper Barrakka lift, the drydocks which welcomed ships from all over the world and Maltese workers being confronted with this industrial revolution, the first airplanes, a drainage and electrical system and many others things which many other European countries could not even conceive.
Thus there was an urban explosion occurring which seemed not to succeed in dismantling the archaic mentality of our nation.
This was obviously not solely particular to Malta. All countries passed through modern disasters whilst undergoing technological urbanization and rampant archaism as happened in France, United Kingdom, Germany and Italy,
However, there was at least one thing which was different, amongst others: since Malta is a miniscule island, this contradictory aspect was of a different essence. In France - in Paris more than France - as soon as one leaves Paris one is faced with archaic provinciality. As one exits from London, one is no longer experiencing English cosmopolitanism, but a scarily provincial and cut-off world. Outside of Moscow is a type of feudal insularity. The same for Berlin, for Madrid and all cosmopolitan centres. Malta is no exception.
Yet due to Malta's size, the limited space creates a contradiction of claustrophobic territory. In this way, the urbanization of the port region together with the rural part (which has today become touristic) and the southern industrial area are seemingly and gradually merging and the definition of urban-industrial-rural is losing its distinctiveness.
This process began in the 20th century when, as I have said, European culture lost its preceding stability and the objectivity of thought, and when, paradoxically, Malta began to search for self-definition.
This volcanic collapse of intellectual stability engendered different reactions. There were those, such as Juann Mamo, who welcomed it as destiny, yet which ends up as the tragedy of Ulied in-Nanna Venut. Manwel Dimech sees it as a final alternative for Malta to grow as a modern state and nation, the same for Strickland and Mintoff, Dun Karm fatally understood that nothing could hold back this tsunami and thus called everyone back to the nostalgic stability of the village and the farmer. Antonio Sciortino remained silent practically for the whole of the last decade of his life.
Josef Kalleya transcended and metaphysicised this highly turbulent period with a language which even today remains indecipherable. Some musical pieces by Carmelo Pace also show this confusion of ruins, especially his Symphony Nr. 2, which is giving a poetical-musical language to scratches of Kalleya's visual poetry; two signs leading towards a Maltese modernism.
Article edited and translated by Nikki Petroni
Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci is the artistic director of the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale which will be held between 13 November 2015 and 7 January 2016. APS is the main partner of the Mdina Biennale