Four Olympics by Norbert Francis Attard

NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARDRD

FOUR OLYMPICS + CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS 1998 - 2004

Grey is hard to find - the grey I’m looking for, that is. Not the grey of dingy apartments, nor the absence of colour on a bleak day but the blending of what absorbs all colour with what negates it, the colour of a fusion, sudden and pure, which lies pristine in a solution of what was two before. Grey is hard to find where colours clash, yin yangs, or south still vies with north, or west with east instead of being a sheet of silver, magic and complete - yet which can still vibrate with possibility of shape and tone and hue like ‘us’ whenever we can mingle ‘me’ and ‘you’ Perhaps compassion is the leaven which should lighten our mind, but our eyes are weights on loveless days and grey is hard to find.

MARIA GRECH GANADO

NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

FOUR OLYMPICS

+ CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS 1998 - 2004

Text Tereza de Arruda © Tereza de Arruda Stanley Borg © Stanley Borg Editor Dennis Vella Design Layout Norbert Francis Attard Photography of A Bit of Boat and Boat Race Norbert Francis Attard Patrick Fenech Photography of Chronology of Works Norbert Francis Attard Daniel Cilia Richard Cooper Patrick Fenech Paul Gilby Gerhard Klocker Colin Ruscoe Jonathan Sligh Jon Wrigley and Mario Abela (Zone Five) Scanning Scancraft Limited, L-Iklin, Malta Norbert Francis Attard, Gozo, Malta Gutenberg Press, Gudja, Malta Printed and Bound Gutenberg Press, Malta Published and Distributed by NY Arts Books 473 Broadway, 7th Floor New York, NY 10013, U.S.A. E-mail: nyartsmaga@aol.com www.nyartsmagazine.com Copyright All works by Norbert Francis Attard © Norbert Francis Attard E-mail: norbert@norbertattard.com www.norbertattard.com ISBN 0-9727451-0-6

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the permission of Norbert Francis Attard.

CONTENTS

FOUR OLYMPICS NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD

Introduction by Tereza de Arruda

Four Olympics by Stanley Borg

A Bit of Boat

Footnote

Boat Race

Olympic Kiss

Chronology of Works

Salvation through Extremes by Stanley Borg

Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Biography

132

Solo and Group Exhibitions

135

Selected Publications

138

Bibliography

139

Awards

141

Biographies of collaborators

142

Acknowledgements

143

Four artistic statements by Norbert Francis Attard Introduction by Tereza de Arruda

During his artistic career, Norbert Francis Attard has used many different media to produce a wide variety of work. Each piece is not so much an isolated work as an individual element of a larger composition which not only speaks to itself but also to its surroundings. This ability can be traced back to his roots as an architect and also be sensed in his previous twenty years of activity as painter and printmaker. His own approach to architecture reflects the everyday human experience – that the conflict between space, form, material and structure controls contemporary existence. “The here and now of a piece of art is reflected in its existence at the place where it stands. In the course of its existence this first impression and nothing else will determine its story and how it is appreciated” 1 . In his art, Attard does not concern himself with copying nature or custom building objects per se. He is on a journey of discovery in a world where raw materials offer themselves to his creativity. His task has more to do with the reproduction of objects which have been newly formed by Attard himself. In this way they are freed from their old function or association, and have a new existence as a work of art, inhabited by a new aura which goes beyond its primary meaning in the world of art. At first sight many of his objects appear unusual: the original form or predecessors provide plenty of room for Attard’s ideas. A good example of this method of working is seen in the installation “Zwölf Dialoge“ (Twelve Dialogues) presented at Gozo in Malta in 2000. For this work the artist had 28 chairs made of Swedish pine built which, just as in a game, could be combined in many different ways and acted as objects or witnesses reflecting human behaviour. The new compositions embodied sculptures which were christened with different names: “Familie/Dreieck“ (Family/Triangle), “Gleichgewicht/Konfrontation“ (Balance/Confrontation), “Gerechtigkeit/Diktatur“ (Justice/Dictatorship) for example. The objects, realization of emotions, were displayed in the warehouse where the wood was originally stored – back to the origin. These thoughts form the basis of his artistic interpretation and provide an aura to his works of art which is continued in the new series.

His latest series Four Olympics was exhibited at “Project Artiade 2004” in Athens during the Olympic Games. The Foundation Artiade intends to bring back to Humanity the essence of the Olympic Games. Its roots were known as Platform for country

representations not only in the sports but also in the art field, so that the different cultures could be connected by the same feeling and impulse. In parallel to the Olympic Games Artiade presented an art exhibition with the participation of artists from the Olympic nations. Four Olympics consists of videos, sculptures and photo objects: Olympic Kiss, Boat Race, A Bit of a Boat, and Footnote. This diverse constellation was chosen to capture the collective feeling of the different cultures and ideologies of those gathered in Athens during the Games. Boat Race and A Bit of a Boat remind one initially of ships. On closer inspection the observer notices that these objects are detached from their original function. Changes to the scale and to the surfaces paradoxically prevent them from being used as a means of transport. Attard gets his inspiration from everyday things and, as such, banal objects are born again as newly created works of art. Boat Race is a monolithic sculpture that achieves its autonomy through its presence. Its open form resembles a skeleton that appears to double in size through shadow play in space. Attard uses the organic form of his sculptures to investigate new forms of expression of human behaviour and adaptability. Attardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s precise wood designs are reminiscent of the Russian Constructivist Vladimir Tatlin who experimented with environment-like space. Whereas Tatlin preferred vertical construction Attard concentrates more on the horizontal.

A Bit of Boat is composed of seven different individual sculptures. The whole composition works like a theatre production where each object takes on its own role. The work uses the ship-like basic form as a continuation from Boat Race. The care and attention to detail transmit a warmth to the observer that serves as an invitation to explore the object or to even try it out. With the smooth surfaces offering a perfect place to relax or lie down. Attard demonstrates the metamorphosis of his works by inviting the observer to become part of them. This self-portrayal works as a performance to provoke new experiences. The parallels between performance and sculpture arouse an unusual sensibility with controversial and unconventional

characteristics: “This new approach throws up more questions than answers to the problems of the relationship between art and reality, art and other objects and art and its manifestation. It is an attempt to capture time and space, change and 2

changeability in the moment” . Attard has also experimented here using wood as a raw material to see how it transforms into a new composition. With this process the artist is able to produce precise, highly aesthetic openings on the surface. By using geometrical forms, like window openings cut into their surfaces, his sculptures take on a strong architectural character. From inside and out they offer many different views that change depending on the position of the observer. Although this group object is not meant to be entered, because of its experimental composition it works as a “Pendance” to Daniel Liebeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. This building is one of the most striking examples of harmonisation between architecture and sculpture. The exhibition space chosen by Attard for A Bit of a Boat is a small, closed and disused room in the warehouse. This backdrop embodies the transience and abandonment of modern times. Attard’s paragons are the high-rise buildings on the outskirts of cities that, despite their modernity, have been left to ruin. A curious parallel can be drawn to Attard’s birthplace, Malta where old ships await their fate of death and decay. From this point of view the sculptures, through their form and material, could be perceived as coffins. Sculpture in general is accepted as a metaphor for the human body because of its size and volume and how it stands in space like the observer.

Footnote uses a contemporary symbol – a Nike shoe – to symbolize human cultures of industry and sport. It embodies the modern day myths of speed and the future. The latest ads market this not as a product but as a motivation: “You are faster than you can imagine”. Attard has produced this picture using a poetic text that plays with the development of language and history of his country. The picture folds out like a screen which divides the space – an expression of the tension between tradition and innovation. The video Olympic Kiss celebrates a symbol of love with a kissing couple. This act demonstrates the inner human impulse to communicate independent of background and language. This emotional picture is accompanied by a sobering text giving

statistics and research facts to the act. The tension between rationality and sensitivity symbolizes a universal controversy. Universal symbols do not demonstrate identity of thought – this is also true for the cult symbol in Footnote – but rather make up a collective that is formed from many different subjective thoughts. “The key to a subject’s perception is experience not form; what Kant called formation, fundamentally deformation” 3 . The deformation of a picture or object must not be seen as negative, but as allowing space for a new interpretation or a new beginning. The end should not be seen as the final word but as the starting point for the next experience. Even the artist’s fascination for using an abandoned industrial building as a platform for the presentation of his work is a sign of the new contextualisation of an existence, it turns the space alive through the new content. Through this attitude the visitor obtains a combination of different cultural points of view to recompose his own experience. A similar project from the point of view of duality between two existences was Beyond Conflict. It was done in Liverpool in 2002 during the Biennial. He involved the façade of the Oratory with red and green fabric creating a new barrier to be conquered by the public: visual, emotional and especially spatial. Considering the fact that the Oratory was used for burials this project received a second life. Another work, Container 21st.c. was produced for the International Container Festival in Taiwan in 2003. It emphasizes even more this context through the powerful displacement of the object/container also due to the fact that the sea water circulated from the harbour into the container as a sign of the continuation of the natural cycle. The artist does not necessary produce his works for neutral white cubes but for direct confrontation with people who make use of public spaces. The dialogue desired by Norbert Francis Attard happens therefore in a more natural way.

Tereza de Arruda Curator of ARTIADE 2004, Athens, Greece. Berlin, September 2004. Translated from the German by Christine Skerratt.

1. Benjamin, Walter. Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit, 1977, 11. 2. Bruneau, Philippe; Torelli, Mario; Barral i Altet, Xavier in “Performance und Body Art” in Skulptur von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart: 1110, 1991. Taschen Verlag, Köln. 3. “Zu Subjekt und Objekt” in Adorno, Theodor W. Philosophie und Gesellschaft, 86: 1984, Reclam, Ditzing.

Four Olympics by Stanley Borg

What are games but a race against that horizon of being which is time. On track, field and in water, insubstantial human bodies attempt to set records and for one single moment, stop the tide of minutes, seconds and milliseconds from rising further against life. Similarly, installation art inhabits a physical side and is connected to real conditions. Primarily, installation art behaves in time, thus imitating an athleteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exertion and commitment to record brief hopes of immortality. In this regard, Norbert Francis Attardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s four installations are a Sein und Zeit, existential preoccupations with time. Like an athlete, Attard feeds upon his tensions and shapes life in the manner of a game, a record to be set, a continuum of real yet ephemeral experience which responds to the resolute conditions of time. Olympic Kiss takes a voyeuristic look at the act of kissing and from the simplest, most ready-made act in the world transfigures it into a strange yet familiar game. Indeed, the installation can be seen as a Duchampian shift from an expected consumer context to a new artistic space in time where kissing is played according to the rules, thoughts, fears and curiosities of two lovers. Attard further imparts aesthetic value to this everyday action through the quotes and unquotes which form the text of Olympic Kiss. Thus, the kiss of welcome and of parting, the long, lingering, loving present stolen becomes a conquest and a contest where the kisser becomes an athlete and the kissed a record to be broken. The text also throws light on the act of kissing as an esse est percipi boundary moment of self-awareness, reminding us that we are both a subject armed with self-knowledge and an object; an inverted visual experience where we see and are seen, reflect and are reflected upon, kiss and are kissed.

In Boat Race, a boat laid bare is cast adrift in the sea of its shadows which reflect its shape and history as a symbol of war, games and civilisation. Indeed boats have, from time immemorial, been instrumental in drafting maps and thus, shaping our world. Across history, they have carried peoples and races to other countries for commerce as well as to conquer and battle. Yet the work is not simply deconstructive. The artist does not dismember the body, and you will find no fragments or severed limbs of wood. On the contrary, Boat Race forces the beholder to intertextually reminisce the shape of a fish, wings and imagine the outline of flight and space, if they had one. Neither is Boat Race destructive, in that it is not about war but sees the Olympic Games as a peaceful battle between all nations. Boat Race is also a theatre piece which carries out the prophecy that installation art is an escape for objects so that they are no longer confined to their normal, passive role as instruments but acquire an independent existence. Thus, while being static, the wooden boat is the essence of movement, a moving immovable whose smooth, flowing surfaces take flight.

A Bit of Boat includes seven boats, smooth as the joy of a Brancusi sculpture, lined up for a race in that uncanny sea which divides the sculptural from the functional, the aesthetic from the chatter of the everyday world, the object from any shadow it may cast. Thus, this boat’s dovetail joints and squares are a reminder of eavesdropping windows and the architectural lines of modern urbanism; the other one’s surface is a falling leaf; that boat’s flow rhymes the elliptical eye painted on the sides of Maltese traditional fishing boats, the other one’s wooden ribs celebrate Phlebas the Phoenician’s sensual death by water. A Bit of Boat also blurs the boundaries between the strange and the familiar, the present and the past. Thus, water is no longer an abstract layer which supports but also a medium and a channel for movement and transportation. The Mediterranean is returned to its former glory as a source of light and dark, sanctity and sin, war and peace, the oikos, that desire for a return home, and the voyage away from home, a contrast upon which the Odyssey, that archetypal voyage, is based upon. The boats recall the part they played in the rise and fall of civilisations, their essential presence in the metaphor of the voyage as well as their ageless race against wind, waves and time. What changes first, the world or language? The words in Footnote attempt an answer to this question by creating two moments in time using a language, Maltese, which along years of conquest has suffered the influences of both Romance and Semitic languages. The first moment in time tells of a fisherman catching words from the sea surrounding one of Malta’s victorious maritime cities, Birgu; the second is an epiphany where victory goes beyond the words themselves. Thus, both moments show language as concealment and unconcealment, and ordering process that either masks existence with its commentary or, being a cipher, reveals it. Like a question which questions its questioning, the words in Footnote opt to giving intelligibility to the world and reflect on human culture as the product of a language which, functioning within the realms of expression and representation, creates the human world with all its preferences, purpose and history. Thus, the words in Attard’s installation act as jumelles, literally and figuratively: they are a footnote to the signified and note on existence, all in the shape of a foot.

Stanley Borg Valletta, August 2004

A BIT OF BOAT In collaboration with John Fuller. 7 sculptures 9 mm. marine plywood, stainless steel wire, glue, screws.

Curated by Tereza de Arruda Organised by Artiade Foundation, Berlin, Germany. Petrou Ralli Street 19, 17778 Tavros, Athens, Greece.

GOZO contemporary 11, Mongur Street, Gharb, Gozo, Malta.

Thus, this boat’s dovetail joints and squares are a reminder of eavesdropping windows and the architectural lines of modern urbanism; the other one’s surface is a falling leaf; that boat’s flow rhymes the elliptical eye painted on the sides of Maltese traditional fishing boats, the other one’s wooden ribs celebrate Phlebas the Phoenician’s sensual death by water. A Bit of Boat also blurs the boundaries between the strange and the familiar, the present and the past. Thus, water is no longer an abstract layer which supports but also a medium and a channel for movement and transportation. The Mediterranean is returned to its former glory as a source of light and dark, sanctity and sin, war and peace, the oikos, that desire for a return home, and the voyage away from home, a contrast upon which the Odyssey, that archetypal voyage, is based upon. The boats recall the part they played in the rise and fall of civilisations, their essential presence in the metaphor of the voyage as well as their ageless race against wind, waves and time.

Stanley Borg

FOOTNOTE In collaboration with Chris Pace. Digitally printed photography on 32 panels 60 cm x 240 cm. Text by Stanley Borg. Curated by Tereza de Arruda Organised by Artiade Foundation, Berlin, Germany. Petrou Ralli Street 19, 17778 Tavros, Athens, Greece.

What changes first, the world or language? The words in Footnote attempt an answer to this question by creating two moments in time using a language, Maltese, which along years of conquest has suffered the influences of both Romance and Semitic languages. The first moment in time tells of a fisherman catching words from the sea surrounding one of Maltaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s victorious maritime cities, Birgu; the second is an epiphany where victory goes beyond the words themselves. Thus, both moments show language as concealment and unconcealment, and ordering process that either masks existence with its commentary or, being a cipher, reveals it. Like a question which questions its questioning, the words in Footnote opt to giving intelligibility to the world and reflect on human culture as the product of a language which, functioning within the realms of expression and representation, creates the human world with all its preferences, purpose and history. Thus, the words in Attardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s installation act as jumelles, literally and figuratively: they are a footnote to the signified and note on existence, all in the shape of a foot. Stanley Borg

Birgu. Ma’ xemx [an;ra im/arrta jew kunserva fil-farretti tal-[ob] frisk hemm tieqa tfelli. U ma’ /a//is i]aq]aq vespra indendel [arsti, g[ax trid t[ares ‘il fuq biex tara’ n-nobbiltà li kienet ta’ dil-belt; l-ir;iel bil-pensjoni jittawlu bejn il-persjani bi]-]ebg[a titqaxxar, qishom eroj griegi li ba[[ru f’kull port u issa stra[u; in-ni/e/ mimlija [amiem iferfru ;wen[ajhom b[al talb iddisprat. U b[al ;wen[ajn kif tqum int tarmi l-[olm minn ma’ djul xag[rek u tixxa[xa[ fin-nofs tas-sodda illi jiena [allejt vojt kmieni filg[odu. Imbag[ad taqbad ilsienek bejn il-[anek daqs li kieku kien ]errieg[a tad-dullieg[ u titniehed b[al g]ira /kejkna griega, jew b[al few;a lo]or s[an fuq ;ilda lixxa ]ejt. Kemm int sabi[a. Sabi[a daqs il-g[a]] ta’ ;img[a le[ja, b[all gost tal-kmiem it-twal fl-ewwel jum xitwi, w arlo;; itektek f’lejl b’tieqa miftu[a. U jien nin]el il-port, biex ma’ ba[ar ]ejt nifta[ in-nifs daqs kafe’ iswed tat-tisjir. Jien. Jien biss ma sajjied lewn zokk [amrija vini jdejh stirati xrapnel, fitt irejjex [ars [uttaf f’qieg[ g[ajnejja skuri, kulur Lapsi surtun fid-disg[a ta’ flg[axija. Wara nofsinhar, forsi jnewwilli ]ew; kelmiet bil-lajma kollha, bl-istess qies ta’ kif idendel l-g[alf ma’ tarf sunnara xewka. Daqs li kieku l-kliem kienu punti f’nofs [alqu farrett. U f’dan l-ispazju bla [amrija nisma’ serbut kliem [iere; minn bejn i/-/angaturi ta’ l-isqaqien; minn tarf il-bjut iqandlu l-[asla tas-Sibt filg[odu; jit[allat u ifewwa[ mat-toqlija bi ftit kari. Kliem li ma fadallu xejn x’jg[id, li jsuq il-vannijiet tal-[ob] u jipparkja f’nofs ta’ triq. Kliem li jitbissimli b’sinna taddeheb, qmis fensi u /owker pari;;. Kliem li jintefa jixrob fil-bar tal-kantuniera u taralu t-tbissima tirtab wara ]ew; tazzi inbid vjola daqs tben;ila. Kliem jifrex is-sodda biex jie[u sjestà waqt li barra, il-[edla ta’ wara nofsinhar tkarkar qisha karkur u saqajn somor bil-kallu. Kliem li jilbes ]ew; flokkijiet fuq xulxin u jo[ro; ipejjep hekk kif jisma’ l-lejl die[el u jara’ t-twieqi jixg[elu wa[da wa[da b[al bews. Hemmhekk nibqa’ nistenna, b[al dg[ajsa titbandal qisha u;ieg[ ta’ ras mal-mew;. U forsi b[al dag[jsa

g[ad nispi//a, nistenna u nitmermer ftit ftit b[all-injam. Mad-disg[a ta’ flg[axija il-frisk jaqa’ b[al fil-knisja ta[t in-navi, u l-[in jag[qad f’ramel ponn imxarrab. Qabel jer[ilha, is-sajjied b’g[ajnejh ifassal ;i]irana rizzi jleqqu imdendlin mal-blat tingi]. Mattingi] tan-nemus sajfi s-swar ballata, kif fil-jum mirkeb tar-reb[a, nifs il-[ajja kellu tog[ma, ta’ lejl vopi j]i// daqs girfa w’tieqa tbewwes qamar felli illi j[ares fuq Ateni. Mal-[;ie; ta’ ra;;i x-xemx ng[arrex g[ajnejja, w invell nistira l-vini fildiferru b’dan l-isforz. Fil-kjaroskur tal-misra[ ta’ Nikaia, nifta[ guva kustilji, qalbi [uttafa. Fuq ir-ramel ta’ Faliro ma n[oss l-ebda g[adma f’;ismi, [lief pexxun /omb w g[araq [elu bettie[a li jwa[[al ma’ ;ismi u n[ossu jkessa[ni. Subg[ajja jing[afsu b[al ]iemel ma[rub i[affer difrejh mal-qieg[a ta[raq sikkina. F’Panathinaiko g[ajnejja dritti vle;;a, qalb [edla nofsinhar, u ssabbat bis-suppervja fuq il-folla tg[ajjat biex jien in]id fil-;iri. Karaiskaki u Peristeri, fejn ponnijiet mag[quda i[ottuni, u nintilef fir-rag[wa ta’ demmi jinbe]aq funtana. Vouliagmeni, u l-allat li qasmu l-ib[ra jistennew mat-traffic lights. L-ilma t’Agois ifaqqa b[al xkubetta, u jaqa’ pinzell swat fuq la[am dahri, u s-s[ana u l-g[atx, g[andi l-g[atx ma’ nifsi morsa xkora ;ebel teg[req. Is-skiet jinqata’ rqiq daqs [ajta deni, u g[oqda vini ttikk ma’ abbozz nag[si, b[all-g[ajta tal-bejjieg[a f’nofs il-Plaka jew il-[oss tal-karozzi g[addejjin b’kemm g[andhom sa[[a. U jien issa wasalt issa se naqa’, u ]-]igarella [amra b[al inkejja issa ‘l bog[od, issa titlieg[eb ma’ truf subg[ajja, u ter;a ‘l bog[od. Sakemm na[finha, u s-sema jinfeta[ f’g[ajta bor]a konsonanti tog[ma ta’ sider mimli. Sa l-u;ieg[ jinstema’ b[al gawwi jigref l-ilma tal-port ta’ Skiathos bil-biki tieg[u. Sa r-reb[a ddoqq kulur ka]in fil-festa u tferfer ;wen[ajha b[al pagun, u r-rand jofroqli g[admi, demmi, l-vini, xuxti mxarrba daqs lampuka mtellg[a friska. Kemm hi sabi[a l-qawwa li ma ssibx lil qawwa akbar u tibqa’ tirba[ bla mistrie[. Marathon, kif irba[t hekk ter;a’ tirba[.

Birgu, from the Romance Il Borgo del Castello

Ballata from the Romance balata

Xemx, from the Semitic xems

Mirkeb from the Semitic rikeb

{an;ra, from the Semitic [an;ra

Qamar from the Semitic kamr

{ob], from the Semitic [ob]

{;ie; from the Semitic ];a;

?a//is, from the French chassis

Invell from the Spanish nivel

Vespra, from the Romance vespra

Fildiferru from the Romance filo di ferro

Nobbiltà from the Romance nobiltà

Kjaroskur from the Romance chiaroscuro

?kejkna, from the Spanish chica

Guva from the Sicilian cuva

:ilda from the Semitic ;ild

Kustilji from the Romance costole

}ejt from the Semitic ]ejt

Pexxun from the Sicilian pisciuni

Kafe from the Romance caffè

?omb from the Sicilian chiumbu

Iswed from the Semitic iswed

Bettie[a from the Semitic betta[

Vini from the Romance vene

Funtana from the Romance fontana

Ba[ar from the Semitic ba[r

Traffic lights from the English traffic lights

Sajjied from the Semitic sajjad

Xkubetta from the Spanish escobeta

Xrapnel from the English shrapnel

Pinzell from the Spanich pincel

Surtun from the French surtout

La[am from the Semitic la[am

Ispazju from the Romance spazio

S[ana from the Semitic su[n

Fensi from the English fancy

Morsa from the Romance morsa

Kari from the English curry

G[oqda from the Semitic g[ukda

?owker from the English choker

Abbozz from the Romance abbozzo

?ekk from the English cheque

Bejjieg[a from the Semitic bag[qiq

Bar from the English bar

Konsonanti from the Romance consonanti

Sjestà from the Romance siesta

Pagun from the Romance pav

Navi from the Romance navi

Reb[a from the Semitic reb[a

Nemus from the Semitic namusa

Birgu. One window opens, strung to a screaming sun as red as tomatoes stuck in the wounds of fresh bread. I look up, hang my eyes to the sound of the creaking hinges and see the nobility of a city that once stood, crumbling in pensioners’ eyes glaring between thee louvers and old paint, just like ancient Greek heroes who having sailed the seven seas withdrew, to wither in old niches full of grey doves fluttering their wings like desperate prayers. In much the same way you flutter dreams from your hair and linger on the half-empty bed I left early this morning. Then you putter your tongue between your teeth like watermelon seeds and breathe like a small Greek island, or fresh linen crumbling on oil-smooth skin. You are beautiful. Beautiful like a one week lazy growth; long sleeves on a first winter’s day or a ticking clock in an open window. And I go down to the old harbour, to open my body like nostrils for a fresh dark coffee. It’s just me, and an old fisherman the colour of old soil, with his shrapnel veins and a glare fishing in the shallow waters of my eyes. Come afternoon, he slowly hands me two words, as if they were stitches in his wound of a mouth. And around me I hear other words chattering from between the stones and pavements; from the clotheslines with their Saturday morning washing and the alleys smelling of fried onions and curry. Words that have nothing else to say; that drive around in a van and park in the middle of a busy road. Words that glance a gold-toothed smile which softens with every bruise-coloured glass of wine they drink. Words that make their bed for a siesta while the afternoon outside drags its feet. Words that smoke the night away while the windows light up like small kisses.

And I wait, like a boat’s wooden bones withering with the sea salt. Until night falls, and time sticks wet sand in a clenched fist. Before leaving, the fisherman gathers his eyes and pinches them like sea urchins. Or like mosquitoes against which the bastions sing a past victory, when life tasted like fish scratching the calm sea and the moon. Athens. Like slivers of glass the heat scorches my eyes and stretches my veins like violin strings. In the chiaroscuro of Nikaia’s square, my heart flutters in my open rib cage and on the sand of Faliro, I fail to feel a single bone in my body, except for the lead in my calves and sweat that tastes like summer fruit. My fingers pound the ground like runaway hooves. In Panathinaiko my eyes fly straight as arrows in the supine afternoon and a groaning crowd. Karaiskaki and Peristeri, where clenched fists crumble me and I drown in the fountain froth of my blood. In Vouliagmeni, the gods that crossed the seas wait at the traffic lights, while Agois’ water cracks like a gun and falls on my bare back like lashings, and it’s hot, and I’m thirsty and my breath pounds like a stone falling beneath the waves. Silence is spiked with the sound of blood thumping in my temples, just like traffic or merchants’ shouts in the Plaka market. I gain, I fall, while the red ribbon teases its distance. Until it wraps around my fingers, and the sky opens with pain crying like the harbour gulls. Laurels scratch my veins, skin and hair as wet as a freshly caught fish.

BOAT RACE In collaboration with John Fuller.

Six sheets 240 cm x 120 cm of 16 mm. marine plywood.

Curated by Tereza de Arruda Organised by Artiade Foundation, Berlin, Germany. Petrou Ralli Street 19, 17778 Tavros, Athens, Greece.

GOZO contemporary 11, Mongur Street, Gharb, Gozo, Malta.

Stanley Borg

OLYMPIC KISS In collaboration with Chris Pace.

12 minutes, 11 seconds DVD video. Filmed and Directed by Norbert Francis Attard. Editing and Post-Production Effects by Chris Pace. Scriptwriting and Research by Stanley Borg. Production house: Blaze Productions Limited, Malta.

Music by Philip Glass. Cello solos by Yo - Yo - Ma. From the original motion picture soudtrack NAQOYQATSI. Members of the Philip Glass Ensemble. Conducted by Michael Riesman.

Curated by Tereza de Arruda Organised by Artiade Foundation, Berlin, Germany. Petrou Ralli Street 19, 17778 Tavros, Athens, Greece.

Olympic Kiss takes a voyeuristic look at the act of kissing and from the simplest, most ready-made act in the world transfigures it into a strange yet familiar game. Indeed, the installation can be seen as a Duchampian shift from an expected consumer context to a new artistic space in time where kissing is played according to the rules, thoughts, fears and curiosities of two lovers. Attard further imparts aesthetic value to this everyday action through the quotes and unquotes which form the text of Olympic Kiss. Thus, the kiss of welcome and of parting, the long, lingering, loving present stolen becomes a conquest and a contest where the kisser becomes an athlete and the kissed a record to be broken. The text also throws light on the act of kissing as an esse est percipi boundary moment of self-awareness, reminding us that we are both a subject armed with self-knowledge and an object; an inverted visual experience where we see and are seen, reflect and are reflected upon, kiss and are kissed.

Stanley Borg

Chronology of Works 1998 / 2004

Salvation through extremes by Stanley Borg

Le pécheur est au coeur meme de chrétiene… Nul n’est aussi compétent que le pécheur en matière de chrétieneté. Nul, si ce n’est le saint. The sinner stands at the very heart of Christianity… No one is as competent in the matter of Christianity as the sinner. No one, except the saint. Péguy

Salvation lies in extremes. Either-Or, black or white, sans permitting tolerance for the bourgeois compromise that is grey. Either Augustine, rational order, man of action. Or Pelagius, sinner, chaos, man of thought suffering from the disease of consciousness, that malady of seeing too deep and too much contracting in the dead end of Eliot’s Gerontion: ‘After such knowledge, what forgiveness?’ Heaven or hell. Yet are extremes really opposites, or just the same side of a different coin? The last fifty years or so of critical theory seem to point to the second option while discarding opposites as a basic fallacy of logocentrism, that metaphysics which Derrida accuses as fostering the concept of being. The point of departure for Derrida’s indictment is apparently Nietzsche’s comment in The Will to Power that ‘false opposites, in which the people, and consequently language, believe, have always been dangerous hindrances to the advance of truth’. There seem to be no opposites but extremes, and the further these are, the closer they come full circle. Who would have thought that saint and sinner eat off the same plate, yet with different forks? In truth, even the greatest of existentialist outsiders, Nietzsche, seeking the equilibrium of dance on the verge of the abyss and making a tentative jump, has Christian roots. Both the saint and the Leipzig philosopher share a passion for eternity, eternal recurrence and engage in the quest for a higher man. They simultaneously repudiate the universal and are essentially ahistorical and irrational in that they make movements of faith on the strength of the absurd. Again, the existentialist

outsider, endowed or enburdened with a thought-riddled nature, is committed to truth, just like the saint. Both Camus’ Meursault and the Christian saints are martyrs for the sake of truth – saint and existentialist outsider are unable to live in the comfortable, insulated world of the bourgeois, accepting what they see and touch as reality. Thus, both seek salvation in extremes, finding it difficult to see bourgeois grey anywhere, joining Norbert Francis Attard in an ideal, existentialist Place called Paradise. Either one or the other extreme alludes to the other or to the one. Taking the most extreme of extremes, life and death, it is only the latter which is the clue to authentic living. Both birth in life and death are mutual conditions of the other. This is the kind of extremity Freud stated when he invoked the pleasure principle and the death instinct simultaneously. Each extreme is a thauma to the other, a moment or a sense of wonder and recognition that impels philosophisation and creation of any form of art, including that of installation. Installation art in all its guises explores the notion that space and time are, in and of themselves, fodder for artistic consumption. An artist takes over an installation space like a temporary squatter whose clutter of possessions challenges boundaries and sparks dialogue between the space itself and its contents. Dialogue because the being of an installation is not a matter of sole location, but an engagement with spatial conditions of time, light, weather. Thus a site-specific installation is created, beholded, and then dismantled, the actual process showing the two extremes of man who is bent both on creation and destruction, continuity and death. It comes as no surprise that Beuys utters the words ‘death’ and ‘Continuum’ in the same artistic breath. In some of Attard’s installations, the space itself is a religious context and in most of them, the dialogue is a reflective one – both in form, content and meaning. The extremes on which Attard’s installations are based are each reflected and refracted to a different density, yet never Clone(d), be it the waters of the Noosa River, the upper and lower layers of an Earth Temple, a shallow basin of water in a church, even the projection itself of AND SMUFF2603. And though reflected and refracted, these extremes stay contained in themselves and never tint to create a middle distance on touching. In essence, the red and green cloth in Beyond Conflict twist and turn in each other, like the blue and red pannolenci in Paola Pezzi’s 2002 Vortice, yet they remain separate and never copulate in a blue haze. If there is a middle distance, then it is an abstract layer, like the water between the extremes of heaven and hell in Palestrina and Hell or that in Attard’s Taiwan installation Container 21st Century, which despite carrying Richard Wilson’s industrial overtones, manages to regenerate and connect continental extremes through a waterfall. Reflection in itself is a eulogy of repetition, an existential preoccupation with time. Reflection is continuation, not that eternal and flawless fabrication of cardboard boxes on the production line but rather, the erweiterte Produktion of Beuys’s multiples and editions. Such is eternal recurrence, a salvation and renewal for man, the eternal lack of telos

Intervention I Twelve colours of emulsion paint. In collaboration with Urban Splash, Manchester, England. Curated by Paul Gilby. Manningham Mills, Bradford, England, 2003. Manniningham Mills in Bradford is a disused textile factory which used to manufacture coloured velvet material. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s present condition is of a dilapidated state so that everything has turned into one predominant grey colour. The thirty-six rusted columns which run down the middle dividing the space in two parts were wire-brushed and cleaned before applying the twelve different colours of emulsion paint.

Balance Mirrored perspex, wood, branches. The Floating Land Curated by Kevin Wilson. Organised by the Noosa Regional Gallery, Wejba Creek, Noosa, Queensland, Australia, 2001 A rowing boat with two long branches acting as oars was constructed entirely out of mirrored perspex. A layer of small branches was placed on the bottom of the boat. This boat was placed floating in one of the creeks which could be seen predominantly from a particular wooden bridge that crossed the creek. The reflected branches on the inside mirror of the boat made it seem like the boat was full of branches, while the water reflecting on the outside mirror created a different kind of illusion.

in the universe, so that to will Sisyphus’ eternal cycle with enthusiasm but without hope is the ultimate attainment of affirmation. Todorov claims that reading is a passive type of writing. Similarly reflecting, or beholding, can be a passive type of creating – two extremes in esse est percipi, to be is to be perceived. This concept of One extreme reflecting the Other and simultaneously using the Other as a vehicle for self-knowledge is a reflection of extremes that is in itself a Christian salvation. Karl Jaspers himself claims that being awakened by the Other is like Christian salvation – “my uniqueness is elicited by and requires the uniqueness of others…one becomes oneself and brings the other to himself in thus opening oneself to him. It is…the struggle of beings that recognise themselves as united but have as a condition of their reality to assert and maintain their difference”. This means that the Other is always an extreme, another subject, yet not in an egocentric but rather in a subjective communion. Following this precept, even if Vanessa Beecroft’s nude models are presented in a shared communal stance, each model remains an individual space within a space. This reflected notion of to be is to be perceived is explored by Olafur Eliasson, whose installations are so ephemeral and subtle that there is a reversal of extremes – the viewer seems to be viewed by the installation itself rather than the other way round. Eliasson’s works are instances of self-awareness, acknowledging the terrifying being-in-the-world. In Your Sun Machine, the viewer solidifies the act of perceiving and thus becomes aware of a revolving human, city, Earth around the sun. Thus to see, the viewer turned collaborator also has to be seen by the installation itself. The same notion is examined by Attard in Tolerance of Ambiguity, an installation which becomes an event and reaches a heightened level of participation by placing a see-saw where the vision that would enable One to see the Other is obstructed by a stairway-wall. Given this hindrance, it is impossible for participants to achieve the necessary balance between extremes that would enable them to behold, be beheld and ‘live’. In Tolerance of Ambiguity the esse est percipi malfunctions and both ‘players’ are never actualised and remain invisible since their eyes never meet. Neither One nor the Other are ever awakened to liberty and the uniqueness of One is never solicited by the uniqueness of the Other. An encounter of extremes will only be possible when the two ends of the see-saw meet. The Meta di Borgo and the Terebinth of Nero have to meet in order for Peter to be crucified and saved. Going a step further, the reflection of the One in the Other’s eyes only offers the consolation of a limited self-knowledge. The answer lies in Eliasson’s work Seeing Yourself Seeing, a mirror which is partly transparent and partly solid which thus enables the viewer to visualise the act of seeing oneself in the third person. Alternatively, one can become aware of oneself through another medium, such as colour. In Intervention 1, Attard presents the whole colour spectrum against the drab greyness of the Manningham Mills. Since colour is realised when light bounces off our retina, an analysis of this same gamut is in reality an analysis of our bodily functions and us as a subject.

Justice / Dictatorship

Balance / Confrontation

Dominance / Obedience

Family / Triangle

Independent / Separation

Compatibility / Disparity

Unity / Diversion

Consensus / Controversy

Making Love / Indifference

Worship / Sacrilege

Thrust / Abuttal

Meditation / Attachment

Twelve Dialogues 28 Swedish pine chairs. Caruana Timber Stores, Xewkija, Gozo, Malta, 2000. Twenty-eight identical wooden chairs were manufactured and exhibited in the same place where the raw material was originally stored The idea was to put two or more chairs together, thus creating different combinations using the same chair. Opposing meanings were created even though the same chair was used throughout.

For Sartre, the direct reflection of the self by another self, as in a mirror, is never an adequate source of self-knowledge – the self must be seen reflected in the eyes of the Other before it can be known. I have to see being seen – therefore I am. The realisation of the One or the Other as such can only take place by positing the existence of a third in whose eyes humanity is considered an object. This is simply an ideal concept and corresponds to the idea of God as the being that sees, is not seen and, as Descartes believes, does not deceive us. Nowadays, this function of God has been taken over by the world of manufactures and public signs. This is shown in Attard’s Ora Pro Nobis, which posits the two extremes of religion and consumer culture, not so much different in that they both require the consumption of a divine body for salvation. The title of the installation itself, although somewhat ironically posited, seems to elicit prayer for us, in an age of affluence which saw the shift from a need-culture to a want-culture registered. Pray for us in an age where we are constantly reminded just how fat and unattractive we are, where our existence is reflected in a heap of undancing shoes, of plastic consumer culture and large amounts of false urban texture. Pray for us in life, where death is no longer the capital possibility nor the clue to authentic living and culpability. Pray for us, dwarfed by spectacular consumption and a high-tech, fast-paced, expensive and global world, within which, as in an Andreas Gursky photo, the individual is but one among many whose death is Kafkaesque and anonymous. The two thousand shoes that litter the space of Ora Pro Nobis are the negative trace of us not having survived what seems to have been the final consumerist solution, a Last consumerist Supper. Shoes of all size and style are, like Piero Manzoni’s ‘merda d’artista’, that detritus of a civilisation long dead and gone but whose futile life is unearthed by archaeologist Attard from some distant future. Rather than indicating life, these shoes, like the Boyle family’s Journey to the Surface of the Earth, are the remains of

The Zealot II Digitally printed photo on canvas, 3.2 m x 5.4 m. Organised by Centro Wifredo Lam. Directed by Hilda Maria Rodriguez. Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña, 8th Havana Biennale, Cuba, 2003. A 2.0 m. x 2.5 m. digitally printed photograph on p.v.c. (same photograph as in Zealot I) was attached onto one of the many external opening windows of the fortification walls of the Cavana Fortress in Havana. This photograph was seen from the other side of the moat.

The Zealot I Digitally printed photo on perspex, 3.2 m x 5.4 m. Escape Curated by Austin Camilleri. Old Prisions, Citadella, Gozo, Malta, 2003. A 2.4 m x 2.4 m back-lit digitally printed photograph was adhered onto transparent perspex. The flexible perspex was installed in a former 500 year-old prison cell, and bent to form a barrel-vaulted arch that spanned the entire space of the cell. Concealed lighting was placed behind the perspex and along the sides of the room to light and emphasize the photograph.

Palestrina and Hell Electronic music by Ian Boddy. Scaffolding, PVC membrane, 8 sub-woofers, 4 speakers, 2 CD player & amplifiers, water, lights. Curated by Eva Jacob. Johanniterkirche, Feldkirch, Austria, 2003. A timber platform constructed above the excavated area and the side chapels of the church created an upper and lower chamber which consisted of two installations which could be witnessed simultaneously only from the entrance of the church. PVC plastic was placed on the platform to form a 5cm shallow basin containing water. Underneath the plastic eight sub-woofers were placed so that the low frequency sounds from the electronic music caused the water to move in ripples . A series of ambient speakers were placed around the church for the same soundtrack to be heard. The space below contained two skeletons and their graves which were highlighted with green lights whilst blue fluorescent lights were placed at the back.

man who is neither black nor white, but a grey that is too late for the gods and too early for Being.

In the same way that Nietzsche introduces Thus Spoke Zarathustra with his undermining of morality by exposing its non-moral basis and rationality by exposing its irrational basis, so does Attard use language to condemn it as a false reflection and as a metaphor of the absurd. Unlike the true or possible regenerative reflections in Salina’s Lament or Palestrina and Hell, Back to Babel presents language as a multiple and false reflection of a truth that becomes, literally, beyond words. Attard condemns the ‘unreligious’ use of the word, in that it does not reflect the real, strives yet clings to the sensuous and moreover, multiplies or divides it into a plurality of tongues. Even one single word from one language, a jumelle, can have more than one meaning – it can have two, each meaning at the extreme of the other. For instance, Pharmakon in Greek can mean both ‘remedy’ and ‘poison’, two extremes such as life and death. Here, the word is not the beginning but the failed encounter of the human mind with reality, and this explains why Back to Babel accuses the use of language without desire, without the movement towards completion. In what seems to be a Pongean exercise, Attard tests the misuse of the word, the absence of any referential significance and the passing along of the word in what Gabriel Marcel, in Problematic Man, describes as ‘the anonymity of everyday chatter’ in the they-world. The word, supposedly the prime human vehicle to understand the world, becomes the other extreme. Man spends his life in the world as if the world were Xu Bing’s A Book from the Sky, an installation which featured hundreds of beautifully bound books and giant scrolls arching across ceilings and walls. The books and scrolls contained 4000 unreadable characters. Attard condemns the word as a bourgeois compromise which spreads untruth and establishes inauthentic existence. Instead of mediating the being-in-the-world by revealing intelligible objects of use and enjoyment, it obscures them by covering them with itself – the intermediary becomes the

Path to Transcendence Printed fabric, table, five chairs, mirror, light. The Paths to Europe, Curated by Dimitri Konstantinidis and Monika Sielska. Macedonia Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2003. A mirror was placed on the back of the container so that the space reflected into this mirror. A blue carpet was laid on the floor and an upholstered table and five chairs were placed against the mirror so that the table was twice as long and the chairs became ten instead of five. The reflected image of the table has no longer the ‘liquid’ quality as witnessed on the table but has become a different picture portraying a more ’solid’ state. The only light came from the blue fluorescent lights underneath the table and the two spotlights highlighting the top of the table.

Salinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lament Existing structure, PVC membrane, water, light, sub-woofer, 4 speakers, 2 CD player, 2 amplifiers. Music by Ian Boddy. Poem by Mario Azzopardi. Borders, curated by START and Richard Davies. Pinto Wharf, Pinto Stores, Valletta, Malta, 2003. Existing partitions were dismantled from their original place and put together again to form the main structure of the installation. A waist-high platform was built within this space, containing a shallow basin of water. One sub-woofer was placed in the middle and underneath the water, so that the low frequency sounds activated the water to ripple. Lights were placed within the structure to enhance the reflections; of the structure itself, of the people looking inwards into the space from the outside, and of the architecture of the place onto the water.

Cycle Digital photograph on canvas, 5.75 m. x 4 m. PVC membrane, water, light, artificial legs. Organised by Centro Wifredo Lam. Directed by Hilda Maria Rodriguez. 8th Havana Biennale, Havana, Cuba, 2003. The barrel-vaulted room was 40 m. length by 6 m. wide. The floor space was divided exactly into two equal parts: the first 20 metres was lined with PVC and filled with water and the rest was filled with dry leaves which were collected from public parks in Havana. A large digital photograph was placed onto the far-ended wall. The water which separated this photograph from the dry leaves acted as a mirror so that the upside down image of the female body was seen the right way up on the surface of the water. A pair of fibreglass legs floated in the water and together with the reflected image of the photograph became one whole body. Two lights were placed at the far end to create the right balance between light and darkness in the room.

Make a wish Stained wooden box, photo, mirror, plate, coins. Nomadifesta 2004, Curated by Klitsa Antoniou, Melita Couta and Michael Panayiotis. Organised by Artrageous Group, Nicosia, Cyprus. Kastelliotissa, Nicosia, Cyprus, 2004. The Artrageous Group invited artists from around the world to bring with them one suitcase packed with whatever they wished to display. Participants assembled and walked to Kastelliotissa Space, where they opened their suitcases in order to reveal and exhibit the content of their luggage. This suitcase was made from wood and lined with mirror. It included two photographs of the sea placed at the bottom and at the top of the box. A halfed oval-shaped plate filled with coins from different nations was placed against the mirror so that visually the plate became a whole one.

principal and the true principal is displaced. Thus language becomes eikasia, the lowest form in the realm of illusion, and a terministic screen which, as Attard sees it in Back to Babel, is a false reflection that conceals Being. As it were, language is a grey matter and a matter of grey, another narcotic effect of habit. It is a limbo of lukewarm days and mild content, in the unhealthy middle between extremes. It is the prison where no choice is present, choice being the expression of two extremes – contingency and freedom. In Breath of Mind, Attard conceives this prison as a cage contrived with wood and Korean rope, which from a collection of spaces becomes, once the water level rises, a suffocating entrapment. Given the natural phenomenon that controls it, the cage takes on the essence of a waiting room, where the preoccupation is the numbness and greyness of pending, rather than the two extremes of neither arrival nor departure. It is the colourless zone which is terrifyingly represented in Pascal’s prison, ‘imagine a great number of men in chains, and all condemned to death; some of them have their throats cut in the sight of the others, those who remain see their own condition in the fate of their likes’. This is the image of the absurd human condition. Whereas Babel may have been the first human induced chaos, the 20th century was the first collective encounter with the absurd. The same century also signals the time when humanity, no longer knowing with certainty where it comes from, or where it is going, found its relationship with the universe transformed. For thousands of years man and the cosmos were, to a greater or lesser degree, in accord, but since the eighteenth century they have been at variance. Western man conquered the planet Earth and began an exploration of space, thus starting the end of the religious exaltation that comes from a sense of identity with the universe. Can man exist while bound to the universe only by the dominion he attempts to exercise over it? In I See Red Everywhere, Attard replies in the negative by putting man and nature in an unhealthy and blind relationship of extremes. The tree may be dead and swathed in an excess of red cloth, yet it still stands, dwarfing man and all human conflict as a vain and tawdry thing. Moreover, the tree, in pure Christo tradition, is worshipped and religiously held in the richness of red cloth, a medium of choice simultaneously fluid and weighted down by the recollection of the Maltese baroque festas where cloth is the lair of the sacred. In One Extreme to Another, Attard further explores this dualism between man and nature by contrasting the manmade with the raw, the technological with the natural. In a gesture which challenges the communist ideal behind Christo’s earliest agit-prop interventions along the rural landscape Orient-Express meant to portray an idyllic relationship between man and nature, Attard places an unconnected, dead keyboard in the flourishing green garden of St Leonard’s School, St Andrews, Scotland, thus showing the man-nature as it really is – locked in arm-wrestling instead of holding hands.

Choose a colour. Take red, for instance – neither an either nor an or. An unSimply Red, the prote ousia omnipresent as the harbinger of a whole plethora of emotions. Not a period or a mood but a condition of conditions as can be traced in the history of art, from the red figure technique in Athenian vase painting to the tragic dark red drama in Caravaggio. Red in Rubens, a bloodbath of colour out of which spectacularly voluptuous bodies rise up from a sea of Baroque turbulence. The shimmering summery red of the boy’s cap in Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières and the outrageous and lascivious red in Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters. The blood-red Norwegian skies in Munch and the angry monstrous red Max Ernst uses in L’ange du foyer. The red Christian baroque and the blood-red pelican sacrifice or martyrdom which blindfolds St Peter’s dying eyes. Red is the colour of extremes which swathes the lumpy roughness of an ancient carved stone to the smoothness of a precast modern block in Tu Es Petrus II. The red swathes in I See Red Everywhere which seem to have drawn all the blood from a lifeless tree and absorbed it and the flesh and blood of AND SMUFF 2603. An ambiguous colour, deadly and life affirming, sensual and excessively vulgar, decorative in the form of a hundred towels in a Valletta brothel, hung in the manner of Richard Wilson’s 999 Chinese takeaway bags. Extreme red, colouring the bed of daggers in Caravaggio, himself a painter in extremes, the demonic painting the saintly. In Caravaggio, Attard celebrates the Italian painter’s existence poised between extremes, the first painter to acknowledge popular tragedies and religious themes, the popolaccio and the sans culottes of the back streets alongside bishops and popes, the forerunner of light and shade, moral and immoral – in The Death of the Virgin he reputedly took a drowned prostitute as a model. Even historically, Caravaggio was caught in between extremes, between the high art of the counter-reformation and the domestic art of the emerging Dutch bourgeoisie. Attard installs this acknowledgment by placing Caravaggio’s memory between the extremes of twenty sharp daggers in uncomfortable rest on twenty soft pillows. More than placed, the daggers, halved in confrontational directions, are enclosed under the pressure of glass, recalling the sheltering underworld that chiaroscuro offers. Yet the sheltering is only relative, offering both the safety of candles, over-ripe fruit and damp washing waiting to be hung out the next day and the violence, suffering and mortality lurking in the shadows or outside in the street. All in the reflection of the ten mirrored panels the reflections of which seem to ponder what Hesse claims in his 1927 novel Steppenwolf, that , “man is an onion”, composed of multiple extremes – male and female, young and old, present and past, Apollonian and Dionysian. All in the reflection of the shining blades spattered with blood. Red is the colour of blood, of the menstrual cycle. As feminist poet Judy Grahn chronicles in her Blood, Bread and

Split Hollow metal tube sections. (structure 2.4 m. x 1.5 m. x 2 m.), string. Collaboration between Norbert Francis Attard and Sumer Erek (Cyprus). GOZO contemporary, Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2003. This work was created in my studio in Gozo in collaboration with Sumer Erek, a Turkish-Cypriot artist living and working in London. We first erected two separate rectangular identical space frames using hollow metal sections. We then continued to work together to create outline structures based on the female body, which we then used in combination with the space frame. In the final stage we decided to work both with the same material in order to achieve a homogenous effect. Each space frame was completed independently while being aware of what each other was doing.

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Larger than Life II 4 m. high motorized pendulum, monitor, video projector, 2 VHS players. Larger than Life II Curated by Adrian Bartolo. 48th Biennale di Venezia, Italy,1999. Larger than Life II was a recreation of a small part of the previous installation Larger than Life I. It consisted of a smaller version of the motorised pendulum and a TV monitor. The projection behind the pendulum was a recorded video of the installation that took place six months earlier at St. James Cavalier in Valletta, Malta. The intention was to view simultaneously the two pendulums: the real one in the space where Larger than Life II was exhibited and the projected one from the earlier installation Larger than Life I.

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Larger than Life I 9 slide projectors, TV, VHS player, light, 5 m. high motorized pendulum, 24 battery torches, candles. Re-Interpreting Preti, Curated by Dominic Cutajar, Adrian Bartolo and Theresa M. Vella. St.James Cavalier, Valletta, Malta, 1999. Six interconnected halls were used in this installation. The main space consisted of six slide projectors which projected computer generated images onto the walls and ceilings. A six metre motorised pendulum was constructed and a TV monitor depicting a typical Maltese wedding was placed on its platform. One other hall consisted simply of twenty-four battery torches. Slide images were projected onto the interconnected entrances of the halls to create the illusion of the openings found at St. Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Church in Valletta.

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Container 21st.c. 12 m. container, 2 pumps, pvc pipes, water, light, silver paint. Organised by Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 2003. A 12 m. container was cantilevered onto the harbour of Kaohsiung. It was painted both inside and out with silver paint. The back of the container was cut and removed so that spectators were able to see right through. A 30 cm high basin was formed and waterproofed to contain water. Two visible pumps were placed in the container in order to circulate sea water from the harbour into the container and out again as a waterfall onto the harbour. Lights were strategically placed inside and outside in order for the installation to be seen at night.

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Roses – How Menstruation Created the World, men fear and envy women’s capacity to bleed. They hold her in awe and terror because she bleeds and does not die and becomes a woman. The blood of the male Zealot and that of the female Cycle lie in a polar, extreme relationship. It is not the blood that men shed in hypocritical wars but the blood women suffer month after month that creates, purificates and leads to the rebirth of the world. It is the extreme of Christ’s sacrificial blood that Christians celebrate and acknowledge, rather than that spilled for the sake of Crusades and Inquisition. It is the Cycle’s painful yet regenerative reflection that leads to salvation, not the Zealot’s doing the right deed for the wrong reason. The Cycle female figure is healed through reflection and regenerated in a similar way to Kiki Smith’s fountain Standing, a 12 foot-high woman with water flowing gently from her lower arms and hands. Uncannily enough, Smith uses a dead eucalyptus tree for her sculpture, and Attard himself covers the floor of the northern wing of La Cabana with dead leaves, which mark out the beholder and his position as a trespasser. Yet this regenerative promise is malevolently translated into sin, as the digitally photographed female dips her feet into the pool of water and they come out actual and blood-stained, transforming the female sufferer into the Zealot’s wife.

Resurection I Glass coffin, pearls, coal. Bed of Roses Curated by Norbert Francis Attard. GOZO contemporary, Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2001. A coffin including lid was constructed of 10 mm. thick clear glass and suspended from the ceiling at waist level by two independent 5 metre long pieces of white cotton fabric. In the coffin, and at random, were placed a large quantity of white pearls and a number of pieces of coal.

Like Existentialism, Attard’s installations are not concerned with points of school doctrine but with the recall of philosophy to the existing individual striving to live in the light of reflection, literally. The whole life of Attard’s installations is an epigram calculated to make people aware of extremes, and strive for salvation and maintenance of consciousness. Indeed, while feeding upon the extreme tensions of the artist, they also acknowledge that creativity as a prerequisite for salvation and survival. It is art which acts as a cipher of all that is thought and perceived, and not merely a commentary on life. Attard wishes to enact the religious search of identity and in the process gives an insight into the existential and salvation in extremes. It is a religious search which takes in consideration the discontinuity between faith and reason, acknowledging that the former is an intrusion into the life of the latter.

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Attard’s installations are a search for salvation through extremes, in the process becoming objects of faith. Both installations and faith are aesthetic, the latter quality being the essence of immediacy, of what makes art strike the beholder in the here and now, it’s tendency to attract or repel you. When Gauguin wrote about the supremacy of art over poetry, the sole quality that he argued made art more potent than verse was the time it takes to work. Whereas a poem has to be read from beginning to end, line by line, and metaphors have to be experienced one by one, art means everything it needs to mean straightaway. Art, a painting, sculpture, installation, is complete from the moment you witness it. Attard’s installations are the offspring of extremes, of the artist’s unique language formed within the few square miles of Gozo yet pleasantly suffering the influence of a wider sea. After all, the Mediterranean itself is a source of extremes, light and dark, sanctity and sin, war and peace, the desire to return home, the oikos, and the horizon, that contrast on which the Odyssey, that archetypal voyage, is based upon. Thus it comes as no surprise that Attard’s work moves outwards, from the island where Ulysses lay hidden with Calypso for seven long years, to embrace the tonality of wider influences, from the ready-made to the unorthodox, the Arte Povera of Pistoletto and Merz to Koons’ pop veering towards the American Earth Artists. Its texture ranges from the ancient and modern, man-made and raw, earth and steel, painting and film, an art made without restraints, an experimental situation in favour of complete openness towards materials and processes. Yet there is one positively traitorous single voice, that of Attard condemning and showing what lies behind the greyness of a man who flees anguish in bad faith and frenzied consuming. It is an art which can be both an advocate of faith or the precursor of doubt, since both faith and doubt, while being extremes, are simultaneously parallel, both difficult to get to and impossible to go beyond.

Grey is hard to find Glass coffin, grey fabric, compost soil, laptop, video, light. Uber, Group show of fourteen artists, Curated by Mark Mangion. Garage space, Portomaso, Malta, 2002. A glass coffin filled with some compost soil protruded from, and rested on, a large pile of compost soil which was placed against the wall. The entire space was made of concrete so the overall colour scheme was grey. The coffin was also suspended by a piece of grey fabric. A laptop computer showing a video taken in Malaysia, was placed under this fabric such that only the LCD screen was visible. Two halogen spot lights were placed at ceiling level to highlight the wall behind the coffin.

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Ora Pro Nobis Video projector, TV monitor, 2 SVHS players, one thousand pairs of shoes. 3rd Biennale of Christian Art, Curated by Mgr Prof. Vincent Borg. Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta, 2000. One thousand pairs of shoes covered the entire floor of a basement room. A video was projected on a fitted screen on one end of the room whilst a TV monitor which was placed on the shoes showed a video reflecting different disasters of this world. At one point the video on the wall depicted an animation of the existing walls and arches so that the existing room extended to infinity. The litany which is usually recited after the rosary was the only sound in this installation.

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Rites of Passage

Are you looking at me

And Smuff2603

Back-projected video. 31st December 1999 Millenium Project. Curated by Peter Serracino Inglott. Auberge de Castille, Valletta, Malta, 1999.

Video projection. Organised by the Hypo Bank, Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Curated by Eva Jacob. Vaduz, Liechtenstein, 2002.

Three video projectors, three DVD players. Collaboration between Norbert Francis Attard and Mark Mangion. Borders, curated by START and Richard Davies. Pinto Wharf, Pinto Stores, Valletta, Malta, 2003.

This video projection was created specially for the Millenium Celebrations on the 31st December 1999. It was also the occasion when the St. James Cavalier, Centre for Creativity, was officially opened. The video depicted the history of Malta throughout the last five millenia, from the prehistoric times to the present.

This installation took place in one of the main squares in the centre of Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. This video projection was partly taken from Ora Pro Nobis, a video installation which took place at the Cathedral Museum in Mdina, Malta, in 2002. This work was inspired from the music of Yoko Ono. Are you looking at me also takes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name from one of her pieces of music of the same name.

Three DVD videos were projected side by side to make up one continuous screen 14 metres in length. Opposite the three screens a room was constructed whose entrance was only from the back. This side facing the screens was open but at the same time closed off with transparent perspex. It was purposely constructed so that the spectators were forced to view the whole unrelated sequence of videos from this one particuler place within the room.

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A Place called Paradise I Sand, text, umbrella, deck chair, sink, bucket, motorized pump, coloured water. Cityspaces, organised by YMCA, Valletta, Malta. Curated by Raphael Vella. 78,Old Mint Street, Valletta, Malta, 2002. This installation depicted a beach scene which included an umbrella, a deckchair and the illusion of sand which was created by placing sawdust on the entire floor. Below the sawdust a story about happiness from the book â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Art of Travelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; by Alain de Botton was written. The sink with the chrome tap and the bucket existed before the installation. Another tap painted gold continuously poured out red liquid resembling blood was added, while a submersible pump placed in the bucket circulated this liquid.

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A place called paradise II 100 red towels, golden pegs, washing line. Cityspaces, Organised by YMCA, Valletta, Malta. Curated by Raphael Vella. 78, Old Mint Street, Valletta, Malta, 2002. A Place called Paradise II was hung between two parallel walls in a long narrow vertical shaft in between the third and fourth floors. 100 red towels were carefully placed and hung on several lines with pegs which were coloured gold.

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House of cards 20 digitally-printed photographs, foamboard. ‘Blueprint Faker & Citadel Makers’ (A-Z of Virtual Municipality). Curated by Mike Dawson. Debenhams Windows, Manchester, England, 2003. Twenty A3 sized digitally-printed coloured photographs showing an architectural building in Bradford, England, is depicted in a dilapidated state. These photographs were mounted on foam board, and assembled together in a pyramidal form to create a three-dimensional structure resembling the game played with cards called the ‘house of cards’.

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Back to Babel 2 video projectors, 2 VHS players, newspapers, light, 1 book with map of the world. Art in Malta Today, Curated by Joseph Paul Cassar. St. James Cavalier, Centre for Creativity, Valletta, Malta, 1999. Newspapers from different languages were crushed and formed into balls. These were strung together with a nylon thread and needle. They were then lined up to form a perfect circular wall. The circular pit in the middle was filled with loose crushed newspaper balls and on top of this heap an open book with a map of the world was placed. Two video projections depicting faces of different people coming from different cultures and talking different languages were projected onto the book. The languages were recorded from a three-day visit to Hannover Expo of the same year. The circular wall had strip lighting from the ground level.

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Glasshouse Mountains

One extreme to another

Earth Temple

Bamboo, lava stones, rope, branches. Sticks and Stones Curated by Peggy Smith. Woodford Festival, Woodford, Queensland, Australia, 2001.

100 m. white fabric, red spray, table, chair, computer keyboard. Curated by Donna Rae. St. Leonard’s School, St. Andrews, Scotland, 2002.

Timber round poles, earth, pebbles. Transcutan Curated by Ludwig Frank. Tollwood Festival, Olympia Park, Munich, Germany, 1998.

Not far away from this site were a group of volcanic mountains called Glasshouse Mountains, hence the title of this work. A number of thick bamboo sticks were strung together from the outside perimeter to create a cone-like shape suggesting an eruption of a volcano. The entire central circle was covered with a layer of lava stones together with a circle of small branches.

Students of St. Leonard’s School were invited to write with red spray cans on 100 metres of white crymplene fabric. They were asked to write what the word ‘red’ means to them. After the spraying of the graffiti-like words was completed, the fabric was stretched between two existing trees in one of the gardens of the school’s premises. A table and a computer laptop, both painted red, were suspended in mid-air by the fabric while a school chair, also painted red, was placed firmly on the ground below the table.

This construction consisted of four right-angles coupled at the shortest perpendicular, to shape out four corridors. The side-walls were made out of clean-shaven round beams of wood nailed vertically. The hypotenuses of both triangles stand buttressed by pebbles sloping down to landscape into the park in the form of a circle 22 m. in diameter. One had to climb a slope and go down again to be in the centre of this symmetrical construction. It gave the impression of being below ground level, whereas in fact you were still exactly on the ground level.

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Breath of Mind

Tolerance of Ambiguity

Magnet II

Korean rope and wood. Breath Curated by Park Bjung Wook International Art and Environmental Symposium Chonju, South Korea, 1998.

Bricks, wooden plank, metal pin, plaster. Diaspora International Art Meeting Curators: Javier Baron, Anke Mellin, Luciano Escanilla, Orlando Britto Jinorio, Andres Pereiro, Cuco Suarez. Ciudad de Oviedo, Spain, 1999.

3 kilometres of string. Curated by Paul Gilby. Knaresborough, Festival of Entertainment and Visual Arts (FEVA). Art Apartment, Knaresborough, England.

A wooden grid structure, approximately 4 metre square, with four sides and a roof, was constructed. All the community of the place were invited to participate by covering the wood with typical Korean rope. After the rope was tied and secure, the cage was taken to the near-by lake called Taechon and placed in a shallow part of the water. The artificial lake fluctuated dramatically every day, so that the cage appeared at different levels.

A 50 cm-thick brick plastered wall was built with both of its sides stepped so that people could go up from one side and down the other, or vice versa. A small opening in the middle of the wall, big enough to permit a 4 metre long plank of wood, was pivoted and acted as a seesaw. This interactive work was used by both children and grown-ups. The wall in between acted as a barrier so that people who used the seesaw had to communicate without seeing each other.

Three kilometres of pink string was used to make this piece on the faรงade of a 200 hundred year old Mill which is now an art gallery called ART Apartment Gallery. The idea was to create a paradox between the two parabolic end parts which are in tension against all the slack string in between, which are holding these two end parts together.

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Caravaggio I & II Pillows, knives, 10 mm. glass, wood, wheels, 10 sandblasted mirrors, fluoresent paint. Bed of Roses Curated by Norbert Francis Attard GOZO contemporary, Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2001. This work consisted of 20 pillows with a knife pinned down in the middle. A 10 mm. thick glass was placed on top of the pillows. Wheels were placed under all four corners of the box and fluorescent paint was sprayed underneath so that a reflected red shadow was seen on the floor. The other part consisted of ten panelled mirrors whose back was sprayed with fluorescent paint so that with reflected light the walls around the panels had a red shadow. An image of a sword was sandblasted on all ten mirrors and a letter on the ten panels made up the word Caravaggio.

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The last supper

Love is all there is

Red fabric, 12 plates, cutlery, glasses, ashes and cigarette ends. Curated by Norbert Francis Attard St. Peterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Church, Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2002.

Virgin Valley

Text on transparent plastic sheets, light. Organised by Demarco International Art Foundation, Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland. Apex Hotel, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2002

1 Mannequin, wedding dress, branches, ultraviolet light. Organised by Start-Up Curated by David Darmanin. D-Klub, limits of Rabat, Malta, 2002.

A 1.2 m wide role of red fabric was opened and placed on the existing cemetery floor where the installation was presented. Twelve oval plates together with knives, forks and spoons were laid on the red material. Twelve glasses filled with wine were also part of the setup that represented a formal dinning table. Cigarette ends and ashes were placed on the white plates.

This installation took place in the Metro Bar of the Apex Hotel in Edinburgh. The work was created within the thickness of the walls. A series of words, depicting different meanings of the colour red, were placed on transparent plastic sheets. These were placed in this space and suspended one behind the other so that the natural light coming from the outside made the words readable. At night artificial lights were placed inside in order to have another different view during the night. A heart which was shaped by pulsating red bulbs was placed inside.

The venue of this installation was a disco club. A male mannequin was dressed up in a womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wedding gown and instead of having a pair of legs, the whole figure was lifted from the ground by a multitude of branches. Except for the face, hands and red bow tie, the whole figure - including dress, top hat and branches - was white. The light was important in this work as the red light which was placed under the dress helped to increase the floating sensation of the entire figure. Four ultra-violet lamps were installed on all four sides of the sculpture.

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I see red everywhere

Beyond Conflict

Tu Es Petrus I & II

100 m. red fabric, dead tree. Uber, Group show of fourteen artists. Curated by Mark Mangion. Portomaso, Malta, 2002.

Red and green fabric. Organised by the afoundation, Liverpool, England Curated by Mike Hurst. The Oratory, 2nd Liverpool Biennial, England, 2002.

Polystyrene sculpture, fabric, paint. Organised by Urban Splash, Manchester, England. Curated by Bill Maynard. St.Peter’s Church, Seel Street, Liverpool, England. 2002

This was my very first installation using fabric. 100 metres of red fabric was stretched between two massive concrete columns. The entire space, including the floors and ceilings, were constructed of concrete. A dead tree with all the dried branches still intact was placed in the middle and woven into the red fabric such that the tree stood vertically erect.

The façade of The Oratory which stands near Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral was the venue of this external installation. Red and green fabric was used for this work. The Oratory was used for burials. It was where the coffins were placed during funeral services before being taken down to the nearby cemetery. The two fabrics were independently woven in and out of the columns so that where they overlapped on one particular column they formed alternate separate bands of red and green.

A sculpture representing St. Peter was carved from polystyrene and painted and textured with several shades of red, grey and black imitating granite. Red fabric was used to weave the upside-down sculpture and at the same time to hold it in suspended position. The other part of this installation consisted of two monolithic slabs which were carved out and treated as in St. Peter. These two slabs were then placed in the middle of the main space. 100 metres of stretched red fabric were used to tie and link these two slabs with the four existing columns nearby.

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42 - 50 Seven stainless steel ladles, beans. Bed of Roses Curated by Norbert Francis Attard GOZO contemporary Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2000. Seven stainless steel ladles are used for this work. Each ladle is hooked by its handle onto the next ladle which together form a vertical structure. Each ladle contains a portion of white beans.

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Bed of Roses Eight beds, artificial roses, text. Bed of Roses Curated by Norbert Francis Attard GOZO contemporary Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2001. Seven old spring beds without mattresses were placed against the wall. There were no legs on the side touching the wall, in order to give the impression that the beds were coming out from the wall. On the other side of the bed there was a headboard with legs, and on the front of each headboard one word was placed. There were seven words: Birth, Dreams, Sleep, Pleasure, Rest. Illness and Death. An eight bed with a layer of artificial roses in its springs had the words Bed of Roses printed on its headboard. It was suspended and floating above the rest.

Clone

MLP loves PN &PN loves MLP

Sandblasted mirrors, wood Bed of Roses, Curated by Norbert Francis Attard GOZO contemporary Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2000.

Maltese limestone. Bed of Roses Curated by Norbert Francis Attard. GOZO contemporary, Gharb, Gozo, Malta, 2001.

Ten panels with mirrors were joined together to form a concertina-shaped structure. On each of the five mirrored panels on the right hand side there is a sandblasted letter making up the word CLONE, while on the left hand panels the same letters are reversed. Mirrors held together at an angle create multiple reflections so depending where one stands, each letter is reflected in several different ways. There are certain distances where one sees one’s own reflection several times over, and there is one special place where one sees everyone except oneself.

This sculpture made of Maltese globigerina limestone is a replica of the many ‘Goddess of Fertility’ prehistoric statues to be found at the Museum of Archaeology in Malta. The only, but major, difference is that the entire surface of this sculpture has been engraved with the two emblems representing the two main Maltese political parties: the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party.

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PHOTO BY MAURIZIO URSO

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Biography norbert francis attard Selected exhibitions since 1996 one-man and group shows Selected publications books / catalogues Selected bibliography since 1996 magazines / newspapers Selected awards prizes Biographies collaborators Acknowledgements institutions / companies / individuals

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PHOTO BY MARC SPITERI

N O R B E R T F R A N C I S AT TA R D Born in Malta in 1951. Lives and works on the island of Gozo.

Graduated in Architecture from the University of Malta in 1977 and practised his profession as architect until 1996. Between 1965 and 1996 his artistic output consisted primarily of paintings and limited edition prints. Turning to installation art in 1997, he discovered a latent dramatic obsession with space and its interpretation which frequently borders on duality, dichotomy, ambivalence and irony. Indeed, his installations are advocates of faith and precursors of doubt, the offspring of extremes and of the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique language formed within the few square miles of Gozo. His work embraces the tonality of wider influences and textures which range from the ancient and modern, man-made and raw, earth and steel, painting, film and digital media, honed with an eye for detail and a passion for discipline. He is a committee member of the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts (2002) and director of GOZO contemporary (2001), an art space offering self-directed residencies on the island of Gozo where he lives and has his studio. Since 1998 his works have been shown at the 48th Venice Biennale, Italy; Edinburgh International Arts Festival, Scotland; 2nd Liverpool Biennale, England; 8th Havana Biennale, Cuba; including several other installations and collective international shows in South Korea, Austria, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Japan, Australia, Greece, Taiwan, Liechtenstein and Cyprus.

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Selected installations since 1998 one-man and group shows

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2004

2002

1999

ARTiade, Olympics of the Visual Arts, Athens, Greece. www.transeuropa, Kulturverband Favoriten, Vienna, Austria. ART Expo, Mexico 04, Solaris / Observatorio, Michoacan, Mexico. Nomadifesta, Kastelliotissa, Nicosia, Cyprus. Nonstop, Madrid 2004, Pabellon de La Pipa, Recinto Ferial de Casa de Campo, Madrid. PLAY III - International Video Art Festival Museo de Arte “Ángel M. De Rosa”, Junìn, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Biennale Internazionale di Ferrara, Sale dell’Imbarcadero del Castello Estense, Ferrara, Italy. Kamiyama - cho, Tokushima Pref., Japan.

Beyond Conflict, The Oratory, 2nd Liverpool Biennial (Independent), Liverpool, England. Tu Es Petrus, St.Peter’s Church, Liverpool, England. One Extreme to Another, St.Leonard’s School,St. Andrews, Scotland. Love is all there is, Apex Hotel, Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland. Uber, Portomaso, Malta. Cityspaces, Old Mint Street, Valletta, Malta. Virgin Valley, D-Club, Rabat, Malta. Calpe Festival, Gibraltar.

Larger than Life II, 48th Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy. Matthew Gallery, Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland. Diaspora International Art Meeting, Oviedo, Spain. 2nd Biennale di Firenze, Florence, Italy. Larger than Life I, St. James Cavallier, Valletta, Malta. Rites of Passage, Auberge de Castille, Valletta, Malta. From Hagar Qim to the ring of Brodgar, National Martime Museum, Vittoriosa, Malta. Nature Art Indoor Exhibition, Kongju, South Korea.

2003 8th Havana Biennale, Havana, Cuba. The Path to Europe, Macedonia Museum of Contemporary Art,Thessaloniki, Greece. Escape, Old Prisons, Citadella, Victoria, Gozo, Malta. Borders, Pinto Stores, Valletta, Malta. Scenes of Perspective, Artower Agora, Athens, Greece. House of Cards, Debenhams Windows, Manchester, England. Palestrina and Hell, Johanniterkirche, Feldkirch, Austria. Intervention I, Manningham Mills, Bradford, England. Magnet, Knaresbourgh Arts Festival (FEVA) Knaesbourgh, England. Urban, University of Malta, Tal-Qroqq, Malta. Post-Civilisation, Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

PHOTO BY MARC SPITERI

2001 The Floating Land, International Site Specific Art Laboratory, Noosa, Queensland, Australia. Sticks and Stones, Woodford Festival, Woodford, Queensland, Australia. 2000/70, The road to Meikle Seggie, National Gallery,Vilnius, Lithuania. GOZO contemporary, Gharb,Gozo, Malta. Art and Finance, Vaduz, Liechtenstein. 2000 Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston upon Thames, England. Edinburgh City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland. Back to Babel, St. James Cavalier, Centre for Creativity, Valletta, Malta. Ora Pro Nobis, 3rd. Biennale of Christan Art, Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta.

1998 XIX Biennale of Alexandria, Egypt. Kultur-und Kongress Zentrum, Rosenheim, Germany. German-Maltese Circle, Valletta, Malta Ministry of Gozo, Rabat, Gozo. European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium. National Museum of Fine Art, Valletta, Malta. Grands et Jeunes d’aujourd hui, Paris, France. Masks of Venice, Palazzo Correr, Venice, Italy. Gallery of the Regierung von Oberbyern, Munich, Germany. Earth Temple, Tollwood Festival, Olympia Park, Munich, Germany. Breath, International Art Symposium, Chonju, South Korea.

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Selected exhibitions before 1998 one-man and group shows of paintings and graphics ONE-MAN EXHIBITIONS 1997

1987

1981

International Art Addiction Galerie, Stockholm, Sweden. Rabb Galerie, Neumarkt a.d. Raab, Burgenland, Austria. Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta. Rathaus, Heitersheim, Gemany. Museum of Egyptian Modern Art, Cairo, Egypt.

Alvin Gallery, Hong Kong. Editions Galleries, Melbourne, Australia. Northern Life Museum, Forth Smith, NorthWest Teritories, Canada. St Paul Art Gallery, St Paul, Alberta, Canada. Portland Studio, Suffolk, UK.

Sate Cultural Centre, Hasselt, Belgium. Starken Interieurs, Valkenswaard, Holland. The Un-Common Gallery, Bryan, Texas, USA.

1996 Foundation for Int.Studies, Valletta, Malta. Palais de l’Europe, Strassbourg, France. National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta. Galerie Het Bourlahuis, Antwerp, Belgium. Roemer-und Palizaeus Museum, Hildesheim, Germany. Tepco Gallery, Tokyo, Japan. A.N.W.B., The Hague, Netherlands. Galerie Koncept, Sommerhausen, Germany. 1995 Council of Europe, Strassbourg, France. Mediterranean Conference Centre, CICA Conference, Valletta, Malta Council of Europe, Strassbourg, France. 1994

1986 Moose Jaw Art Museum, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. Bridge Street, Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Medicine Hat Museum, Alberta, Canada. Cronguist House, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. Prairie Gallery, Grand Prairies, Alberta, Canada. The Madrona Centre, Nanaimi, British Columbia. Canada. 1985 Republic of Caryelskya, Petrozavodsk, USSR. Friendship House, Moscow, USSR. Nora Art Gallery, Jerusalem, Israel. Museum Willen Van Haren, Leeuwarden, Holland. Sydney Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia. 1984

Galleria Gaulos, Victoria, Gozo.

L’Atelier du Caire, Cairo, Egypt. Melita Club Toronto, Canada. Galerie Lughien, Amsterdam, Holland. Galerie Ripard, Montingmy-sur-Loing, France. Union of Artist’s Gallery, Moscow, USSR. Republic of Lativa, Riga, USSR.

1991

1983

Four Abstract Artists, Maltafest. Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta.

Galerie T. Weefhuis, Nuenen, The Netherlands. Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta.

1988

1982

Musee Regional de Rimouski, Quebec, Canada. Kunstverein zu Frenchen, Frenchen, Germany.

Twentse Schouwburg Enschede, Holland. The Komos, Amsterdam, Holland.

Wands Showroom, Valletta, Malta. 1992

1980 Philips - Ontspanning - Centrum, Eindhoven, Holland. Galerie Punkt, Copenhagen, Denmark. Galerie des Lombards, Paris, France. Galerie Meiborssen, Meiborssen, Germany. Commonwealth Institute, London, England. 1979 Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta. Galerie L’Angle Aigu, Brussels, Belgium. Stadtsihe Galerie, Bergkamen, Germany. Galerie Sabock Cologne, Germany. Stadtische Galerie, Stolberg, Germany. Graphiksammlung Dieter Lohl, Unna, Germany. Galerie der Stadbucherei, Kamen, Germany. 1978 Kliene Galerie am Zoo, Dusseldorf, Germany. Galerie Sabock, Gologne, Germany. Galerie Ostentor, Dormund, Germany. Kunst auf dem Flett, Skye-Henstedt,Germany. 1977 Galerie Studio 1, Bonn, Germany. Galerie Burg Zweiffel, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. Dresdner Bank Galerie, Cologne, Germany. 1976 Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta. 1974 Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana, Malta.

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GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1997

1987

1981

Euro-Med Conference, Valletta, Malta. International Art Addiction Galerie, Stockholm, Sweden. Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta Rabb Galerie, Neumarkt a.d. Raab, Burgenland, Austria.

Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta. Chamber of Commerce, Valletta, Malta.

Galerie le Nombre d’Or, Metz, France. Palazzo Municipale, Brindisi, Italy.

1986

1980

Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta. 8th International Exhibition of Graphic Art, Frechen, Germany. Zella 9, Gallery, London, UK. Art Forum, Singapore.

Attard Cultural Centre, Attard, Malta. Galerie des Lombards, Paris, France.

1996 Foundation of Int. Studies, Valletta, Malta. Maltafest, Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, Malta. Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta. Galerie Lijst-in, The Hague, Holland. 1995 Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta. Institute of Visual Arts, Valletta, Malta.. Albert Hall, Floriana, Malta. Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta, Malta.

1985 Centre International D’Art Contemporain Paris, France. Christies Contemporary Art, Phoenicia Hotel, Floriana, Malta. 12th World Youth Festival, Moscow, USSR. Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta. 1984

1990

Union Gallery, University of Massachusettes, Amherst, USA. Galleria La Panca, Florence, Italy. Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Munich, Germany. Kurparkohlosschen, Herrsching, Germany. Cultural Centre, Algiers, Algeria. Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta.

Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta.

1983

1989 Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta. Lumley Cazalet, London, UK. C.C.A. Galleries, London, UK.

Expo Centre, Moscow, USSR. Gallerija Fenici, Valletta, Malta. Public Relations Centre, Los Angeles, USA. Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta. Gallery 345, New York, USA.

1988

1982

Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta. Galleri Kunst-Invest, Oslo, Norway. Chamber of Commerce, Valletta, Malta. C.C.A. Galleries, London, UK.

Galerie Manopol Reisen, Munich, Germany. 10 Contemporary Artists, Gallerija Fenici, Valletta, Malta. Museum of Archaeology, Valletta, Malta.

1994 Robert Sammut Hall, Floriana, Malta. Hotel Ta’ Cenc, Sannat, Gozo.

1979 Galerie in der Adendakademis, Mannheim, Germany. UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France. Centro Culturale Mediterranea, Palermo, Sicily. Salone dele Espositioni, Palermo, Sicily. 1978 Galerie der Stadtsparkasse, Recklinghausen, Germany. Galerie Axiom, Cologne, Germany. 1977 Arab Cultural Institute, Valletta, Malta. Commonwealth Book Fair, Nottingham Playhouse, Nottingham, England. Galerie Galjeon, S’Hertogenbosch, Holland. Tempra Gallery, London, England. Palazzo Sforzesco, Milan, Italy. 1976 Palazzo de la Salle, Valletta, Malta. IV Biennal International de Arts, Ibiza, Spain. Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta. 1973 St. John’s Church, Valletta, Malta. 1974 Teachers Institute, Valletta, Malta.

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selected publications books / catalogues

2004 Norbert Francis Attard, Four Olympics, Text by Stanley Borg. Introduction by Tereza de Arruda. Published by World Art Media, New York, U.S.A. 2002 I See Red Everywhere, Published by The Carnyx Group, Glasgow, Scotland. Foreword by Richard Demarco Introduction by Peter Serracino Inglott. 1996 Norbert Attard, an Invitation to..... Published by Foundation for International Studies, Valletta, Malta. Introduction by Kenneth Wain, Foreword by Victor Pasmore. 1996 Norbert Attard, Prints and Paintings, 1977 - 1996. Published by Roemer-und Pelizaeus Museum, Hildesheim, Germany, Edited by Dennis Vella, Foreword by Kenneth Wain. 1992 Norbert Attard, Paintings, Exhibition catalogue, Published by Gallerija Gaulos, Gozo, Malta, Introduction by Peter Serracino Inglott, 1986 Norbert Attard, Lithographs and Silkscreen Prints, Published by The National Museum, Valletta, Malta and the National Museums of Canada (Ottawa), Introduction by Richard England. 1983 Norbert Attard, Artist in Malta, 1977-1983, Published by Edizioni Galleria De Amicis, Florence, Italy, Introduction by Dominic Cutajar, Foreword by Richard England. 1978 While the heart watches. Limited edition handmade box. Twelve poems by Michael Zammit . Three signed lithograph prints by Norbert Attard.

selected bibliography since 1996 books / magazines / newspapers

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2004 Four artistic statements by Norbert Francis Attard, Tereza de Arruda, The SundayTimes, Malta, Sept.19.

Borders, START exhbition catalogue, Richard England, pp. 4-9.

Cityspaces, Raphael Vella, START exhibition catalogue, YMCA, Valletta, Malta. pp.10-11.

A Liberated Artist, Michael J.Mumford, Homeworks, magazine issue 8.04, pp. 26-33.

Palestrina and Hell, Opening speech by Ekehard Schneider, The Sunday Times, Malta, 6 July 2003.

2001

Gazetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Art Magazine, SEECAN South-East European Contempory Art. No.2, pp1, 20.

The International Dictionary of Artists Who Painted Malta, 2nd edition, Nicholas De Piro, AVC Publishers. p.16.

Kaohsiung strives for Art, Chinese Art News, 1/2004, magazine issue No.72. Art and more contained within, Susan Kendzulak, Tapei Times, January 2004, pp.19. Installation Art in Malta, Mario Azzopardi, Kultura 21, February 2004, pp.15,16. 2003 Bienal Adentro, Carina Pino-Santos, La Jiribilla, Havana, Cuba, No.131, 2003. Where dollars speak louder than protest, Jason Edward Kaufman, The Art Newspaper, No.142, December 2003, pp.27. Escape, exhibition catalogue, Austin Camilleri and Daniel Cilia. Norbert Francis Attard - Palestrina and Hell, exhibition catalogue, Kulturreferates der Stadt Feldkirch, Austria. Nicht von dieser Welt, Ariane Grubner, Voralberger Nachrichten, 28 May 2003. Norbert Francis Attard: Palestrina and Hell, Interview by Eva Jacob, Anzeiger, 22 May 2003. Feldkirch-im Banne der Kunst, Ulrike Breit, Kultur, Neue Voralberger Tageszeitung, 30 May 2003. 100 Contemporary Artists, Volume 1, World of Art Books, Stockholm, Sweden. pp.166-167. Life and imprisonment, Stanley Borg, The Times, Malta, June 2003.

8th Havana Biennale, Wilfredo Lam Foundation, exhibition catalogue.pp.91, 264.

The water works, Rosalie Higson, The Weekend Australian Magazine, December, 2001. Boat mirrors balance of nature and threat of man, Anon., Sunshine Coast Daily, December 15, 2001.

2002

Sculptures take to the water, Glenis Green, The Corier-Mail, 24 October, 2001.

Art Land and Water, Kevin Wilson, Sunday Times of Malta, 24 November, 2002.

Bed of Roses, Emmanuel Fiorentino, The Sunday Times, October 28,2001.

Interview with Norbert Francis Attard, Rosemary Strang, www.blinkred.com, Scotland, England.

Biennale-Kunstler in Liechtenstein, Eva Jacob, Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Austria, February 16, 2001.

Recent installations in Scotland, England and Malta, Richard Carr, Sunday Times, Malta, 24 November 2002.

Art and Finance Video Project, Attard and Briffa in Liechtenstein, Joseph Paul Cassar, The Sunday Times, Malta, March 11, 2001..

Seeing Red, Alison Forrest, Prospect magazine, Nov/Dec issue No.88, Glasgow, Scotland. Festival Art reaches an Apex, Richard Carr, Artwork magazine, Scotland, England, July/August 2002, pp.5. Liverpool Banks on Art, Emma Beatty, The Art Newspaper, England, 27 September 2002. Norbert Francis Attard, Richard Carr, Studio International, www.studio-international.com London, England, Sept. 2002. Swinging Scousers, Liverpool 1, Holly Johnson, New Statesman magazine, England, 14 October 2002. I See Red Everywhere,Edited by Fiona Calder, The Carnyx Group, Glasgow, Scotland. Foreword by Richard Demarco, Introductory Study by Peter Serracino Inglott. Contributors: Fiona Calder, Neil Cameron, Richard Carr, Emmanuel Fiorentino, Quentin Hughes, Paul Sant Cassia, Diane Sykes, Julian Treuherz, Raphael Vella, and Kenneth Wain.

Taking art into another dimension, Josanne Cassar, The Malta Independent, March 10, 2001. Venedig in Vaduz, Ursula Badrutt Scoch, Tagblatt Beleg-Seite, Austria, February 2001. 2000 Diaspora, exhibition catalogue, Ciudad de Oviedo, Spain, 2002, pp.56-57, 74-75, 152, 191. Interview ma Norbert Attard, Mario Cassar, In-Nazzjon, Malta, June 4, 2000. Art in Malta Today, Joseph Paul Cassar, exhibition catalogue, St.James, Centre for Creativity, Valletta, Malta. pp. 33, 89. Contemporary Christian Art in Malta, exhibition catalogue, Cathedral Museum, Mdina, Malta. pp. 37, 98. Inauguration Catalogue, St. James Cavalier, Centre for Creativity, Valletta, Malta.

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selected bibliography since 1996 books / magazines / newspapers

1999 Re-Interpreting Preti, Theresa M.Vella and Adrian Bartolo, National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta. pp. 11, 29.

It’s an Or for Norbert Attard, Emmanuel Fiorentino, The Sunday Times, Malta, April 27, 1997.

Epiphanion, exhibition catalogue, Foundation for International Studies, Valletta, Malta. pp.1.

Norbert Attard’s grandiose view of Preti, Emmanuel Fiorentino, The Sunday Times, Malta, January 24, 1999.

Harsa lejn Norbert Attard - l-artist, il-perit u aktar…,Doris Spiteri, In-Nazzjon, Malta, May 2, 1997.

The other side, Theresa M. Vella, The Sunday Times, Malta, October 20, 1996.

Mattia Preti: Ri-interpretazzjoni Kontemporanja, George Glanville, Ghalik magazine, Malta, January 23, 1999.

Norbert Attard, bidla radikali fl-istil, George Glanville,Ghalik magazin, Malta, May 3, 1997.

Malta: Norbert Francis Attard, Vince Briffa, Ray Pitre, Adrian Bartolo, Venice Biennale catalogue, Italy, 1999.

Sudlich von Sizilien: der Maler Norbert Attard, Ulla Dretzler, Das ItalienKulturmagazin, Germany, 1997.

Transcending time and space, Josanne Cassar, The Malta Independent, July 8, 1999.

1996

Destination, departure: The Venice Art Biennale, Adrian Bartolo, The Sunday Times, Malta, July 11, 1999. pp.110-111. Artist of the month, www.maltamag.com, Malta’s on-line magazine, August 5, 1999. 1998 Temple of Earth: Norbert Attard in Munich, The Sunday Times, Malta, March 8,1998. Tollwood 98, Anon., Artworld magazine, South Korea, August 1998. The double frustration of painting, Adrian Bartolo, The Sunday Times, Malta, November 15, 1998. 1997 Advanced Graphics London, catalogue celebrating thirty years of printing, Berkley Square Gallery, London, England, 1977. Norbert Attard, architect and painter, Norbert Ellul Vincenti, The Times, Malta, January 18, 1997.

The other side of the divide, Kenneth Wain, Exhibition catalogue, Foundation for International Studies, Valletta, Malta. Norbert Attard, Victor Pasmore, Exhibition catalogue, Foundation of International Studies, Valletta, Malta. Norbert Attard, Vintage 96, Emmanuel Fiorentino, Sunday Times, Malta, March 31, 1996. Living among the colours of Paradise, Daphne Caruana Galizia, High Flyer magazine, Malta, April 1996. In search of quality, Raphael Vella, The Malta Independent, March 31, 1996. Abstract Experiences, Rose Lapira, The Sunday Times, Malta, March10, 1996. Opening the infinite doors of life, Rose Lapira, Guest magazine, Spring issue, 1996. Norbert Attard, The aestheticics of pure form, Dominic Cutajar, First Sunday magazine, Malta, March 1996.

Hier Farben, du Schatten, Hanne Buschmann, Rheinische Post, January 21,1997.

Exhibition by Norbert Attard in Tokyo, Anon.,The Sunday Times, Malta, May 12, 1996.

Regen auf Malta fuhrte zur Kunst, Petra Herzog, Zeitung fur Wesel, January 30, 1997.

Paintings 96, Lara Strickland, The Times, Malta, April 3, 1996.

Shifting Images of Luminosity, Emmanuel Fiorentino, The Sunday Times, Malta, October 27, 1996 Love at first sight, Raphael Vella, The Malta Independent, October 27, 1996. Norbert Attard, Prints and Paintings, 1977 - 1996, Dennis Vella, (General editor) Foreword by Kenneth Wain and selected writings by Dennis Vella, Meir Ronnen, Dominic Cutajar, Anne Musgrave, Richard England, Peter Serracino Inglott, Raphael Vella, Emmanuel Fiorentino, Rose Lapira and Theresa M. Vella. Malta, 1996. Hites des sonnen durchgluten Meeres festhalten, Helga Schmalhorst, Hildesheimer Allegeimeine Zeitung,Germany, Nov. 27, 1996. Maltese art in Antwerp, Emmanuel Fiorentino, Sunday Times, Malta, December 8, 1996. Il-kuluri qawwija ta’ Norbert Attard, J.C. Camilleri, In-Nazzjon, Malta, December 13, 1996. Maltese artists in Antwerp art gallery, Anon.,,The Malta Business Weekly, December 19-26, 1996. All in a day, George Cini, Sunday Circle magazine, Malta, Dec.1996. Norbert Attard works at Hildesheim Museum, Sunday Times, Malta, December 22, 1996. Three books on Norbert Attard, L.J.S., Sunday Times, Malta, December 22, 1996. Barometer des Zeitgeistes, Anon., Kunst Aktuell magazin, Germany, 1996. Profile of an artist: Norbert Attard, Anon., We magazine, Malta,1996.

selected awards prizes

1999 Citta di Firenze Prize, 2nd Biennale di Firenze, Florence, Italy. 1998 Diploma of Excellence Masks in Venice, Palazzo Correr, Venice, Italy, 1998. 1997 1st Prize, Gold Medal, Most Talented Artists, Art Addiction International Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden. 1983 1st Prize in the annual Vote a Stamp referendum, organised by the Malta Philathelic Society. 1981 2nd Prize, Concorso Internazionale dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Arte, Marco Pacuvio, Brindisi, Italy. 1977 Primo Premio di Ricordo, Concorso Internazionale dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Arte, Palazzo Sforzesco, Milano, Italy. 1972 1974 1975 1st Prize, Malta International Trade Fair Poster Competition, Naxxar, Malta 1968 2nd Prize for Painting, Malta Society of Arts, Valletta, Malta. 1967 Third Prize for Poster, Malta Society of Arts, Valletta, Malta. 1966 1st Prize, Commonwealth Countries Art Competition, London, England. 1st Prize (together with Marco Cremona) Bank of Alderney, Valletta, Malta.

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144

Biographies collaborators

Tereza de Arruda Born in 1965 in Brazil and presently living in Berlin, Germany. Curated and collaborated in many International art events and institutions, namely, Goethe Institut Inter Nationes in Brazil and Germany, British Council, Welsh Art International, DOCUMENTA 11 (Kassel, Germany), Art-Frankfurt 2003 (Frankfurt, Germany), Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), Havana Biennale (Cuba), Istanbul Biennale (Turkey) and Sao Paolo Biennale (Brazil). Author of articles in catalogues, magazines and newspapers as well as co-author of the German artist encyclopaedia Allgemeines K端nstlerlexikon from K.G. Saur publishing house in Leipzig.

Stanley Borg Born in Malta in 1977. Graduating with a thesis on Colonialism as a metaphor for the human existence, he went on to read existentialism as a philosophy and as an absence from British literature, especially in the middle years of last century. He is a freelance journalist covering lifestyle and cultural events. A committee member with cultural organisation Inizjamed, he collaborates in projects aimed at arming people with the weapon of words. His poetry, while being a concern with everyday urbanism and the mysteries behind manicured lawns, reflects the urban vernacular and describes instances of quotidian bricolage and street survival. His current work at the office of the Prime Minister entails monitoring and standardisation of public services.

John Fuller Born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1962 and moved to Coolum where he presently lives and works. He is currently a furniture designer and maker working from a home-based studio creating custom furniture. He is also a qualified Fitter, Turner and Toolmaker. Apart from joinery he has experienced working in metal fabrication, casting and moulding of aluminium and plastic. He has the ability to work with many materials including glass, ceramics and stone. In 1996 he established 17 squared a firm producing mainly individual contemporary works consisting mainly of furniture specially designed for particular clients.

Chris Pace Born in Malta in 1972. He is currently Art Director of Blaze Productions, a Company he established in 1996. Most of the work is dedicated to producing TV commercials, channel idents, company profiles, documentaries and multi-media presentations. Prior to his developing his audio-visual direction he was skilled as a Graphic Designer where he was employed as a Creative Director with JP Advertising from 1992 until 1996. He also worked as a draughtsman for three years from 1990 to 1992. Two other parttime interests which he practises are painting in watercolours and interior design for private homes.

Norbert Francis Attard would like to specially thank the following persons and organisations who have contributed to the realisation of the four projects in Athens.

Saviour Gauci Carpentry, Victoria, Gozo, Malta John Fuller 17 squared, Coolum, Queensland, Australia Chris Pace Blaze Productions, San Gwann, Malta Alan Piscopo AF Sign Studio Limited, Gudja, Malta The Hon. Minister Dr. Francis Zammit Dimech Ministry of Tourism and Culture Reuben Vella Bray Malta Tourism Association Brian Tortell AirMalta Dr. Paul V. Mifsud Malta Council for Culture and the Arts Daniel Reginiano Time International, Mriehel, Malta Renate Westhoff-Reisch Artiade Foundation, Berlin, Germany Tereza de Arruda T.A.Art Projects, Berlin, Germany

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Artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Acknowledgements

Marisa Vella Paul Vella Joe Smith Jaihn K. Rose Carina Dimech Naomi Attard Michael Aquilina Noel Attard Patrick Fenech Dennis Vella Stanley Borg Tereza de Arruda Patricia Pac Maria Grech Ganado Chris Pace Ivan Saliba Alan Piscopo Caroline Piscopo Nikolai Micallef John Fuller Alfie Borg Maurice Reisch Renate Westhoff-Reisch Marc Spiteri Maurizio Urso Daniel Cilia Richard Cooper Patrick Fenech Paul Gilby Gerhard Klocker Colin Ruscoe Jonathan Sligh Jon Wrigley Mario Abela Godfrey Farrugia Nikki Zammit Reuben Vella Bray Paul V. Mifsud Daniel Reginiano Savoiur Gauci Prof. Oliver Friggieri Francis Zammit Dimech George Farrugia

Michael J. Mumford Dimitrios Trantas Georgia Ieremia Christine Skerratt Joseph F.X.Zahra Frans Jones Sandro Bruno Martin Cassar Mario Borg Raymond Delia Chapman Kuo Cho Wen Che Nita Lo Richard Demarco Sumer Erek Karolina Spyrou Eva Jacob Eckhard Schneider Roland Adlassnig Arno Egger Ian Boddy Elizabeth Muller Albert Ruetz Joe Piscopo Sean Said Paulene Attard Florian Kinast Bill Maynard Austin Camilleri Paul Mizzi Noel Balzan Hilda Maria Rodriguez Margarita Sanchez Prieto Dominica Ojeda Perla Mesa Armando Gargallo Vina Jesmond Mifsud Sergio S. Leyva Sotolongo Silvio Rivero Mejias Carlos Cala Izquirdo Juan Rivero Mejias Kevin Wilson Julio Cesar Gonzalez Aleaga

Yurisleidys Moreal Varona Fotini Kariotaki Haris Palas Nikos Varitimiadis Christos Savvidis Jannis Epaminondas Dimitri Konstantinidis Monika Sielska Helene Comineas Milana Christich John Cauchi Noel Galea Jesmond Bugeja Mark Mangion Bernie Bruber Tancred Tabone Josef Cuschieri Chris Lynch Michelle Cassar Johann Vella Vanessa Galea Alison Breeze Quentin Hughes Michael Stroud Wendy Bellars Donna Rae Fraser Macdonald Fiona Calder Richard Carr Diane Sykes Lorna Lee Gordon McCulloch Antonia Reeve Neil Cameron Joseph Dalmas Julian Treuherz Mike Hurst Jane Cassey Salvu Tabone Silvio Saliba Charles Saliba Kevin Passmore Penny Smith

Amanda King Tamara Kirby Josie Prestepino Cathy Roberts Richard Newport Peter Serracino Inglott Mario Caruana Raymond Caruana Joseph Paul Cassar Mgr. Vincent Borg Mary Vella Mgr. John Azzopardi Ray Saliba Ronnie Bellia Maryanne Purves Richard Muscat Mary Todden Orlando Britto Jinorio Sandar Gallo Alonso Anke Mellin Carlos Corona Cuco Suarez Raymond A. Grech Ruben Zahra Philip Herrara Vince Briffa Paul Parker John Xuereb Frans Psaila Dominic Cutajar Adrian Bartolo Theresa M. Vella Charles Bonavia Kenneth Wain Tony Pace Claudio Fiorentini John Lungaro Mifsud Megakles Rogakos Emmanuel Fiorentino Park Byoung-Uk Katsumi Mukai Sung Dong-Hun Ludwig Frank

Roland Meyer Mario Azzopardi Richard England Alison Forrest Paul Sant Cassia Raphael Vella Alberto Gallasso Andreas Insam Klitsa Antoniou Melita Couta Michael Panayiotis Nick Creed Adrian Micallef Lewis Pace Paul Vella (Velprint Ltd) Joseph Xurereb Raymond Vella Katsumi Yamamoto Aaron Yassin Petru Russu Mike Dawson Nina Dimitriadi Tarcisio Scicluna Lewis Galea Rene Dalpra Tetsuya Yasuda Rei Shiratori Chkashi Kinjo Kumiko Kinjo Chris Anastasi Joe Scerri Stephanie Farrugia Genie Poretzky-Lee John Grech Aachim Korte Malcolm Miller James Scicluna Steve Robb Doris Azzopardi Charles Azzopardi Andrew Muscat Brain Tortell Albert Sant