Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1385129
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 JUNE 2021 INTERVIEW Caravaggio vaggio's 'The Beheading of St John' comes into the picture. For the Beheading is not just a 'Biblical/Christian/Catholic' narrative. And I'm not saying that to demean that particu- lar interpretation of the story. But it's not the only one. Apart from all the theological impli- cations, the narrative itself – viewed only as a narrative; and without entering the question of whether one 'believes' or not - also explores far-reaching philosophical, theological, and theoretical ideas. And there is a lot that comes out – even just from the theo- logical dimension – that goes beyond its immediate purpose; and that is still very relevant today. To me, the 'Beheading' – and I'm referring both to the paint- ing, and to the event itself: real, or mythological – is not just about an execution that was ordered because of court in- trigue. It's not just about King Herod telling Salome: 'Oh, you danced so beautifully, you can have anything you want'…. so she asked for 'St John the Bap- tist's head' on a plate. There's more to it than that. Why did she ask for the head of St John the Baptist, anyway? As I remember it from 'Jesus of Nazareth': because he had spat at her mother, and publicly shamed her as an adulteress… That's just the 'court intrigue' part, however. In reality, 'St John the Baptist' was a lot more than just an inconvenient 'Voice in the Wilderness'. Even in his own lifetime, he was also regarded as the harbinger of a New Era. He heralded the com- ing of the Messiah – which, in Biblical terms, signifies the New Testament: the start of a new age, a new definition of humankind based on love, and the promise of Salvation: an- other form, one may say, of a Utopian dream of everlasting happiness. Historically, however: that 'New Age' that began with his death – the advent of Christi- anity – would go on to deter- mine… everything, really. The whole evolution of the modern world: including all the pro- gress, and all the devastation, it would bring… OK, I'm beginning to see the connection: although it does require a certain amount of hindsight… Yes, it does. But that is also, in itself, part of the what we – for I have to mention Arcan- gelo Sassolini here: a fantastic artist, with whom I'm fortu- nate enough to be collaborat- ing on this project – are try- ing to do. And it ties in with what I mentioned earlier: the 'de-Caravaggisation' of Cara- vaggio. By approaching the same narrative from this new in- terpretive angle, it opens up a beautiful new panorama to add to all the other interpretations that already exist. It expands our appreciation – in this case, of Caravaggio's Beheading' – precisely by 'denuding' it… by removing Caravaggio himself from the picture, as it were, and applying what's left to our own, contemporary world. And one way of looking at it, is that… the 'ushering in of a New Age' always ends in trage- dy. Whether it's Communism, with its gulags… whether it's Marshall Mcluhan's comput- erised global village, or Yon- eyi Masuda's Computopia, … or Nazism, with its Holocaust and global racial domination… and no matter how Utopian the ideology claims to be… it always ends in dystopic vio- lence and brutality. Like the dominant dictatorship of steel in the 20th and 21st centuries, it ushers in an age war and gen- ocide… So if the idea is to strive to- wards a world in which there is more 'justice and peace' – and 'war and genocide' are, ulti- mately, the antithesis of that - to me, it makes sense to try and give a tangible form to this 'Utopian/Dystopian' dichoto- my - to try and… as I put it in the programme… 'un-conceal the concealed truth'… Another theme explored by 'Diplomazia astuta' appears to be language: presumably, as a factor contributing to our cultural identity. "Metall u Ski- et", for instance, features an engraving of Psalm 139 in 'He- brew, Aramaic, Latin, Greek, Maltese, Italian, English'. Are you suggesting, however, that language itself is one of the means whereby these 'truths' are concealed? Language in fact is not one of the means, but the means whereby truths are concealed so as to be unconcealed, man- ifested, and made open by language itself. And I went in depth as to the multi-cultural richness of the Mediterranean languages - in particular an- cient languages that form our own Mediterranean identi- ty, and that formed the whole cradle of European genetics: that is, Aramaic, Hebrew, Lat- in, Greek, Arabic - and those forms that specifically make up our Maltese 'structure': that is Italian, Arabic, and English. So a whole process started to evolve in juxtaposing the Car- avaggio idea described a few moments ago, with the multi- ple-flow of languages that en- velop our own selves. I came to this idea by the beautiful help of the Maltese 'Greek-Phoeni- cian' Melqart pillars – today, one pillar can be seen at the Malta Museum of Archaeolo- gy, and the other at the Louvre, France: an unfortunate, cruel separation of the ancient pil- lar-twinning/duality… togeth- er with the beauty that is the Rosetta stone: both of which gave modernity the key to an- cient languages, and thus the key to our primordial identity. The texts chosen were spe- cifically selected due to their chanting of the creation of hu- mankind as a universal act of a work of art. Such 'chanting' is juxtaposed, in our project, with the iced metal modernity: that brings into our world the fire of destruction and purgation, through the phenomenal si- lence of Brian Schembri's mu- sical score. Diplomazija Astuta is curat- ed by Keith Sciberras and Jef- frey Uslip, through the crea- tive collaboration of Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, Arcangelo Sassolino, and the composition of renowned Maltese conductor and musician Brian Schembri