The Central Bank is holding an art exhibition by Joseph Barbara at the Central Bank of Malta, Polverista from 5 to 15 June as part of its 55th anniversary celebrations. Born in 1948 at Ħamrun, the artist completed an apprenticeship in sheet metalwork and welding at the Malta Drydocks in 1969. He studied at the Government School of Art between 1967 and 1970 under the tutorship of the artist Carmel Mangion.
Barbara moved overseas in 1970, travelling and working in Sweden and later in the United Kingdom. During this time, he visited numerous museums and art galleries that served as an influence and a source of inspiration for his later works.
On his return to Malta in 1974, he joined Umberto Colosso Trade School where he taught sheet metalwork and welding for 20 years. During this period, he also acted as an art teacher for students' extracurricular activities.
Early on, during his teaching years, he started creating installations from scrap metal, burrs and anything else that he found interesting at the time.
Eventually in the 1980s, he began experimenting with plastic water bottles and other found objects reconceptualising them into sculptures and installations of various shapes and sizes.
Joseph Barbara has been a freelance artist since 1994. In 1998, he was invited by the Maltese communities in Australia where he spent three months putting up exhibitions in four major cities. The year 2001 brought along a private sponsorship for a six-week sabbatical as artist in residence in Nuremberg, Germany.
He placed first in the Installations section of the Malta International Art Biennale in 2001, 2003 and 2009. In 2006, his entry qualified for international exposure in a poster competition organised in connection with the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. His poster, themed 'Harmony', was one of the 90 posters selected out of 2,200 entries from 33 countries.
Recognised for his monumental installations, in 2007 he built a six-meter Christmas tree from over 20,000 plastic water bottles. Later in 2014, he created 'Catch the Drop' using over 5,000 plastic water bottles as a visual reminder that water is our most precious resource. Students from different state schools across Malta were involved in the creation of these works. A more recent commission in 2021 led to the creation of 'Christ's Face' which was erected in Gozo next to the Ta' Pinu Shrine. The installation was made with 4,000 plastic water bottles collected from all around Gozo.
Throughout his career, Joseph Barbara also exhibited his works in China, Hong Kong, Japan and various other countries in Europe, including Malta.
The artist comments thus about this exhibition: "Waste and all sort of discarded material have always been an integral part of my works of art.
My earliest exhibitions date back to the 1980s. Even though at that time the concept of recycling or even waste reduction was hardly ever considered, I realised that waste can be purposefully transformed into works of art of various genres. Pieces of scrap metals, lollipop sticks, plastic bottles, tree bark, broken mannequins and other type of material otherwise destined for the bin, ended up in my works.
This is my first solo exhibition with such a diverse variety of works from large to small; from hanging installations to free standing ones created entirely from waste generated in Malta.
I am immensely grateful to the Central Bank of Malta for hosting this special sustainable art exhibition titled Skart Għani, as part of its 55th anniversary celebrations.
For this occasion, I was commissioned to create a piece specifically for the Bank. After several discussions with the staff involved in the exhibition, out came Rich Waste Bouquet.
This work was produced entirely from discarded material. The base is a wooden cable drum covered with a piece of canvas from an outdated billboard poster. The stand is made from scrap wood, while the upper part is a ventilation fan guard. On the top of the stand sits a metal rod sourced from a scrap heap. The hands were designed from used printers' aluminium sheets, embossed and filled up with pieces of rags. Each leaf and flower is a plastic water bottle, cut and moulded to shape. The top parts of the bottles are still intact so they can slide on a pipe which in turn slides into the metal rod. The top bud is a metal hemisphere attached to a piece of aluminium sheet designed to form a funnel shape. This is in turn fitted with a rod that also slides onto the pipe. Lastly, the whole installation is covered in shredded euro banknotes that were removed from circulation and destroyed by the Bank. The €5, €10, €20, €50 and €100 denominations were used. The concept is the presentation of a bouquet to the Bank on the occasion of this anniversary.
My gratitude extends to the late Fr Marius Zerafa, moral father of this exhibition, and the staff of the Central Bank of Malta who helped make this happen."
Entrance to the exhibition is from the Tritoni Fountain Square, Valletta.