Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci
The Department of History of Art at the University of Malta, which has also initiated a programme of postgraduate studies in Fine Art, is perpetually increasingly its volume of study on a local and also an international level.
One of the latest academic activities was the launch of an Italian doctoral student within the Department, Irene Biolchini. This student, who is studying under my supervision, conducted profound research on the Argentine/Italian artist Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), who was one of the great masters of contemporary art. Besides this, Biolchini is studying another artist for her doctoral thesis, the Spaniard Miguel Barceló (b.1957). In fact, with help from the Department, she was fortunate enough to meet the artist to analyse his role in the development of contemporary art.
I am extremely gratified that this will be the first doctoral thesis on Barceló, a major Spanish artist. In fact, this will be the first serious study on an international level on the works of this artist. It is a beautiful circumstance that the Department of History of Art took on this initiative to be at the avant-garde of academic research within this field. Last month Biolchini delivered a talk on Barceló titled 'Miguel Barceló: "Painting Aloud" - A Comprehensive analysis of Barceló's self-representations and autofiction', a paper which forms part of her doctoral thesis.
Biolchini's research is ongoing and needs to be developed further. Yet so far has already opened up new and interesting roads which may be exploited in the future. The beauty of her 'aggressive' approach not only concerns the matter that hers will be the first proper international study on Barceló's work, but at the same time Biolchini managed to create a relationship between this artist of world fame and the local context. This has special interest when related to Caravaggio's heritage and also to the megalithic culture of our islands. It would not be unexpected if, by means of these relationships, we would be able to attract global artists to our shores.
The politics of the Department are heading in this direction. There is radical need for Maltese research to integrate itself within international parameters and to even attract students of quality to conduct their research at the University of Malta, which finds its origins in the 16th century. This does not only develop if academics and scholars present their research at conferences in Malta and overseas - something which is vitally important - but also if one creates radical initiatives based on international criteria. The relationship between the Department and Barceló because of Biolchini is a very clear example.
The book which Biolchini just published on the ceramics of Lucio Fontana is another example of the Department's politics of expansion. We are encouraging foreign students to observe the links between art and local artists and those from other cultures. I was very pleased to see that during the presentation of the book an interesting discussion arose on the artistic relationship between Fontana and Gabriel Caruana, between Fontana and Josef Kalleya, amongst others.
Another interesting point which Biolchini underlined was the direct position which Malta took on the international debate which questioned whether ceramics formed part of the definition of art or not. In Malta the ceramics of Gabriel Caruana were immediately recognized as art and not only as a craft, which according to Biolchini was also the case with Fontana. In other words, according to Biolchini, whilst in Europe - especially on the continent - ceramics were still struggling to acquire the status of high art and not simply that of craft, in Malta, due to Caruana and his students, ceramics rapidly gained a position within the avant-garde of circles art. An important point which needs to be studied in future.
Ties between the two cultures concern the baroque and the modern barrocchetto of Fontana. It is very interesting to see how the baroque, under diverse forms, remained alive in modern and modernist times. This theme was also one which I presented at the Warburg Institute (University of London). Biolchini, in her book, addressed this point in reference to particular works by Fontana. A discussion on whether the barrocchetto should be placed within the same category as the modern idea of kitsch ensued.
In my introduction to the event, I emphasized on the intriguing connection between the works of Fontana - his Pietà in particular, and the works of Josef Kalleya. This parallelism not only exists in the choice of content and, beautifully, even in the sense of methodology and praxis, such as the scratching, the trampling, and the material deformation which are so explicit in Kalleya. One must hope that Biolchini manages to study and develop this point on an academic level and with certain strength.
The book's title is 'Le faenze di Lucio Fontana' and is published by the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche (MIC) (Faenza, 2015) in collaboration with the Department of History of Art (University of Malta).
The author researched the Italian historical context within which Fontana was working and also developed an interesting discussion on that which is known as the baroque and the barrocchetto of the artist. What is also interesting is the analysis of the Melandri tomb created by Fontana, which is actually the main work of art discussed in the publication. It also included contributions by Gian Carlo Bojani, Giuseppe Spagnulo, Gastone Croci and Luigi Cicognani.
Biolchini's book was launched in Faenza at the MIC on Friday 15th May by Enrico Crispolti, one of Fontana's most important critics, and a guided visit to the Melandri tomb by Biolchini took place yesterday.
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
Article written edited and translated by Nikki Petroni