Marie Noelle Lanzon

 

One of the cultural collaborators of the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale was ARTNAKED which is a London-based curatorial and cultural programming organisation, founded in 2013 by artist and gallerist Andrew Hancock and arts and PR consultant, Tani Burns.

The Mdina Biennale and ARTNAKED joined forces to bring over a number of European artists to Malta to exhibit their work. ARTNAKED has unique access to an extensive network of leading artists, academics and press worldwide and brings together the combined experience of two established art-world professionals mentioned above.

This collaborative approach was one of the main aims which the artistic director Dr. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, projected for the Mdina Biennale.

The artists proposed by the ARTNAKED team presented works in a variety of media ranging from painting and sculpture to site-specific installations.

These artists include some highly celebrated artists including, Adam Dix, Andrew Hancock, Lena von Lapschina, Richard Shields and Madeleine Fenwick.

Richard Shields visited the island this summer to draw upon the island's unique artistic heritage for a new piece made especially for the Mdina Biennale. Alongside this, inside the Cathedral itself, recent works by Richard depicting historic religious artworks on the green baize of snooker and pool tables were exhibited.

Adam Dix's art explores associations between communication technology and our desire for active communion in society. He re-imagines an alternative future in which shamanist figures in wild costumes lead congregations to ritualistically celebrate the technologies of mass communication. His recurrent motifs include satellites, computer mainframes, TV screens and radio towers. The subject matter, idiosyncratic colour palette and hazy imagery are drawn out from 1950s magazines - a period which is related to his preoccupation with the technology and anthropology of our own past. These works were exhibited at the Cathedral Museum in the refectory.

The work by Lena von Lapschina, an Austrian artist, was an installation specifically designed as a direct response to the characteristics, history, community and architecture of the city of Mdina. It was displayed on the staircase leading up the piano nobile of the Museum.

A life-long visitor to the islands with a Maltese family heritage, Andrew Hancock set up his studio in Mellieħa to develop new ideas for the Mdina Biennale. In the words of Tani Burns "Focusing upon abstract painting for these new works, he (Hancock) is drawing from his deep knowledge of the Maltese artistic and iconographic histories, both heavily steeped in Catholicism. His focus for these new works has been upon the local communities as scenes of communal celebration and as outward expressions of a deep religiosity."  "Given the strong and inimitable expression of faith on the island, in my own art, which I am creating especially for the Biennale, I am trying to subtly incorporate these elements alongside canonical tropes and signifiers such as colour - which is inherent in both Christian, art historical and secular visual language." Andrew himself says.

Both in London and internationally, in the private and public spheres, ARTNAKED's primary focus is not only in presenting the very best of the contemporary art scene, but also and more importantly, in delivering intellectually led, stimulating content to an intelligent and engaged audience. Hancock describes that ARTNAKED's objective was that of brining; "a small but well selected group of artists to Mdina from all over the world. And alongside the other artists being exhibited, allow a Maltese audience and more international art-lovers, a deep, rich and excitingly good art viewing experience." This is something which the Mdina Biennale aimed at creating.

In 2013 ARTNAKED began producing a variety of plays, literary evenings, academic events and art performances. Similarly to this, the Mdina Biennale has included similar events, making it a different kind of exhibition to what we are used to in the Maltese scene. To name a few of the events the Mdina Biennale organised, the following are worth a mention:

March 16th, 1244 - Live Installation with Tom Armitage, which was a concert on 12 December by British composer and pianist Tom Armitage. Another event is Stirred Words which is a session of poetry reading which took place on 28 December.

One other event which stimulated the artistic discussion of Maltese art in comparison to foreign art was the conference 'Peripheral Alternatives to Rodin in Modern European Sculpture: With particular emphasis on Josef Kalleya's art and the visual dialogues of an island scene', organised by the Department of History of Art in collaboration with the Mdina Biennale. Speakers included: Dr Sophie Biass-Fabiani (Musée Rodin, Paris); Dr Julia Kelly (Loughborough University); Professor Joseph Paul Cassar (University of Maryland University College); Dr Jon Wood (Henry Moore Institute, Leeds); Mr Ulrich Meinherz (KesselhausJosephsohn, St Gallen); Dr Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci (University of Malta); Ms Barbara Vujanović (AtelijerMeštrović, Zagreb).

Collaborations such as these are important to the Maltese art scene because they create links between art disciplines and also with foreign art centres like London.

Furthermore these established foreign artists have brought new ideas to Malta. Works like those by Richard Shields help us with widening our boundaries as to what we consider to be art. These artists make use of non-traditional materials which challenge our views of what art is.

The Mdina Biennale was a very particular art exhibition also due to the fact that it was a modern and contemporary art exhibition held in a baroque setting. This is a quite unusual combination, which presented new challenges to the Maltese art scene. The Mdina Biennale was an extensive contemporary art exhibition with over 100 works of art. This exhibition was an opportunity to expose the public to international and local contemporary artists and artworks in Malta, where awareness and appreciation of modern and contemporary art requires further development.

Collaborations such as that between the Mdina Biennale and ARTNAKED are important for the Maltese art scene in order to broaden our ideas about art and also to stimulate conversation about art, in hopes that they will develop into further collaboration and new projects.