Fire Rains Down As Molten Boundaries Are Pushed In Malta’s Pavilion At The Venice Biennale
Some of the islands’s finest are gearing up for a spectacular showing at the Malta Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia 2022.
Always a highlight on the international artistic calendar, Malta’s Pavilion in Venice this year is titled Diplomazija astuta, and will see a reimagining of Caravaggio’s seminal altarpiece The Beheading of St. John the Baptist as “an immersive, sculptural installation that overlays biblical narrative onto the present traversing 1608 to 2022, from the noetic to the metaphysical”.
“By transposing the zeitgeist of the Oratory of the Decollato in Valletta onto the Malta Pavilion, Diplomazija astuta re-situates Caravaggio’s immanent themes within modern life, prompting viewers to traverse a space where the tragedy and brutality of St. John’s execution is experienced in the present, the injustices of the past are reconciled and shared humanist principles can be upheld in the future,” the team behind the Pavilion said.
This year, the Pavilion will be turning the heat up a notch, literally, with a “fire rain” installation that will be turning heads.
Through the use of induction technology, Italian artist Arcangelo Sassolino has created a kinetic installation that conjures molten steel droplets that fall from a structure overhead into seven basins of water, each representing a subject in The Beheading.
Upon contact with the water, the bright orange embers hiss, cool and recede into darkness.
Composer Brian Schembri has created a “percussive score” based on a number of motifs.
He channeled “Ut queant laxis,” the Gregorian chant hymn attributed to Guido d’Arezzo in honour of John the Baptist; rhythmical motifs derived from Carlo Diacono’s two hymns composed on the same Latin text; and Charles Camilleri’s “Missa Mundi,” to choreograph the timing and frequency of each descending ember.
Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci’s incisions into the installation itself (a sculpted ciphertext) proposes a “daunting salve that embeds knowledge beyond and within our grasp”.
Diplomazija astuta posits that the rapid evolution of Modernism’s industrial progress culminated in humankind’s capacity to destroy itself.
In turn, for society to embody its future self in the present, the signal material of Modernism—steel—must be physically, metaphorically and spiritually melted to create space for new progress to occur.
“This extraordinary and timely installation—an invention of the collaborative creative effort between our curators and artists—puts forth a Malta Pavilion that layers that which is said to have passed with that which is still unfolding. Diplomazija astuta creates a palimpsest that uniquely operates within the realms of Caravaggio’s altarpiece and contemporary Maltese visual culture,” Arts Council Malta Executive Chairman Albert Marshall said.
Curated by Keith Sciberras and Jeffrey Uslip, project managed by Nikki Petroni and Esther Flury and supported by Arts Council Malta, this visionary installation is unmissable for anyone in Venice between 23rd April and 27th November.
Find out more by following this link.
Photos: Agostino Osio
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