Helena Dalli’s Husband Gets Extraordinary Treatment And Funding From Valletta Cultural Agency
A month-long exhibition of nude paintings of Patrick Dalli’s that closed last Sunday appears to be the first time that the Valletta Cultural Agency (VCA) produced and funded a single artist’s body of work or even an art exhibition. The exhibition was called “Patrick Dalli: The Journey”.
Sources told Lovin Malta that the exhibition cost the VCA around €35,000, which they described as an extraordinary amount for an exhibition at the Museum for Archeology. The sources said that Heritage Malta does not usually charge a fee to government agencies to make use of the hall where the exhibition was hosted.
Lovin Malta tried to seek clarification from VCA Chief Executive Officer Catherine Tabone. Yet Tabone said when contacted on the phone that she had not received an earlier email and asked for the email to be sent again. After a new email was sent, there was no further response to the email, a further phone call and questions sent via text message and WhatsApp.
In a Facebook post put up last October, Tabone had commented effusively about a separate exhibition of Dalli’s, and referred to him as “my dear friend.”
Dalli is still officially married to EU Commissioner Helena Dalli. He was recently in the news as the artist who painted a portrait of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat that has been hung in the Office of the Prime Minister at Castille.
One of his nude paintings also courted controversy in 2019 after it emerged that the government had paid €15,000 for it. It was then put in the official Prime Minister’s summer residence at Girgenti. Senior artists consulted by Lovin Malta estimate that the nude painting, which measures 1.3 by 1 metre, would expectedly be worth much less than €15,000. The Prime Minister at the time was Joseph Muscat.
Muscat and his wife Michelle were at the opening of Dalli’s exhibition The Journey on 3rd December 2021. In her opening speech, the VCA’s CEO Catherine Tabone “thanked Dr Joseph Muscat and Mrs Muscat for their presence”, describing it as an “honour.”
VCA events are usually Valletta-focused
Set up in 2018, the taxpayer-funded VCA funds and organises regular cultural events in Valletta among other things.
Scrutiny by Lovin Malta of around 75 events held by the agency over the past two years shows that a significant percentage of them had some relevance to Valletta. Others served to entertain people in Valletta (for example street light art installation; live music or performances), or showcased some national facet of Maltese culture, or even created some kind of value associated with Valletta (such as Blind Date with a Book, books put up for the taking in telephone booths in Valletta).
By contrast, the exhibition of Dalli’s work – “Patrick Dalli: The Journey” – featured a single artist’s body of work that has no relation to Valletta.
Moreover, in the case of Dalli’s exhibition of 34 nude paintings, the VCA produced three short videos for its website – other events which have video (not all do) usually have one or two short videos. The VCA also published a hard-copy booklet about Dalli’s nude paintings.
In her speech during the opening of the exhibition, Tabone boasted of the “catalogue we [the VCA] are publishing with an organisation of international fame when it comes to this type of publications, La Nave di Teseo, which is the organisation that publishes books of Vittorio Scarbi. We are talking about a company of the highest-calibre and international renown. It is our pleasure as the Valletta Cultural Agency to collaborate with the best entities in the international art sector.”
Vittorio Sgarbi, a renowned Italian art critic, wrote the introduction in the book, and also separately wrote an article about Dalli’s nude paintings in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.
His sister, Elisabetta Sgarbi, is the publisher of La Nave di Teseo.
The exhibition was coordinated by Valerio Ballotta together with Elisabetta Sgarbi and Stefano Losani – the latter is the Commercial Director of La Nave di Teseo.
Valerio Ballotta is an Italian national who lives in Qala and has a company called GBK Malta Ltd. He organises art exhibitions.
VCA chief refers to Dalli as her ‘dear friend’
Tabone did not respond to any of the questions sent to her. Aside from questions on the justification for producing an event that featured a single artist’s body of work that has no relation to Valletta, and questions seeking clarification on the cost amounting to around €35,000 as claimed by sources, she was also asked if she took the decision to organize this event and whether she takes the decisions on events in all cases.
The sources also claimed that Vittorio Sgarbi was paid €5,000 for his services from that pot of around €35,000. This claim could not be independently verified by Lovin Malta. There was no response to questions on this point emailed to Vittorio’s press contact.
Ballotta was asked to describe what work he did as a coordinator and how much he was paid for it. He did not respond to written questions, and calls to his mobile phone rang unanswered.
Catherine Tabone had referred to Patrick Dalli as “my dear friend” in a Facebook post she wrote after visiting a separate exhibition of Dalli’s last October. In the post she said she would “lay bare some of my thoughts about his work.”
“In depicting the human form,” she wrote, “it seems to me that Patrick is not concerned with beauty, rather he is concerned with Truth. Yet, because his abilities are abundant, his Truth is, at times in spite of itself, undeniably beautiful. His works are the quintessential expression of an artist in whom, I suspect, the urge to create is as strong as the urge to live. His art and his life are one and the same, and both are the product of a rare consciousness – and an even rarer talent – that is able to merge life with form, line and colour.”
“Patrick’s artistry is, I think, larger than he himself can be aware of. He is a true master, in whom and through whom Art expresses itself.”
Victor Paul Borg has lived in various countries and worked as an author, journalist and photographer for around 25 years. His work has been published widely in many countries and is also featured on his website, victorborg.com.
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