If the artist leaves you in front of this conceptual art piece and walks into another room, will you stand still and stare? I don’t think so, you would probably start by lifting your feet from the ground onto the platform. This platform gives us the impression that it is strong, able to endure weight and time; however it is simply an illusion. Is the artist cheating us into believing that this is a large stone beneath a piece of glass, framed by wood? It can be just a thin layer of fiberglass and the wooden frame is there to make us believe in the strength of the material. Mario Cassar, the artist seems to be trying to reduce the value of man-made hard work like that of building our historical temples to simple fibreglass.

Next temptation is that your fingers burn to untie the red bow round the white shoes. You would probably ask yourselves why the shoes are pointing outwards rather than inwards. There is an imbalance because we are expected to face this piece of art while the shoes seem to be turning away from it. Perhaps there is an invisible figure, giving its back to the altar with only its shoes showing. Or maybe there is no invisible figure because the shoes are filled with stones as if they cannot move from that position.

We normally wrap things either to hide or preserve them, as we wrap presents or chocolates. However the wrapped credenza in cling film draws more attention to it and your nails grow longer to poke into this wrapping to feel what is beneath and to see its true colour. This old wrapped credenza throwing a silvery light makes us very curious to know what the artist is trying to protect. It’s as if the credenza hasn’t been used for a very long time. Is it waiting for the right time to be used?

If the artist is still in another room, you will lean on the credenza, pout your lips and blow off the lit candles in front of the repetitive pictures of praying Pope John Paul II. Why has Cassar chosen a spiritual figure as Pope John Paul II? This may be because Pope John Paul II was so humane and he stands as a figurehead for our times. Also notice how Cassar has veiled the pictures of the Pope in prayer with what looks like dried molten wax. Why has the artist covered this as well? It is as if the artist is telling us that we can’t reach this kind of spirituality, that it’s too sacred to be touched. However, looking more closely; what looks like molten wax is scratched as if someone is trying to scribble something hardly legible, trying to find the true meaning of spirituality.

Carmen Sultana

B.Ed University Student

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Mario Cassar, the artist was born in 1975. He is a Gozitan artist and art teacher whose recent work studies the strange role of religion in contemporary art. At present he uses different media including painting, sculpture and installation to explore his thoughts.