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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 JUNE 2021 4 ART Malta Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2022 Diplomazija Astuta is the title of the selected curatorial project that will represent Malta at the next International Art Exhibition at the Biennale di Venezia in 2022 EARLIER this year, an interna- tional call for the engagement of a curatorial team to curate the Malta Pavilion at the 59th Inter- national Art Exhibition - La Bi- ennale di Venezia 2022 was pub- lished by Arts Council Malta, in its capacity as Pavilion Commis- sioner, under the auspices of the Ministry for the National Herit- age, the Arts and Local Govern- ment. An evaluation board com- prising of experts in the sector assessed the proposals received and unanimously decided that Diplomazija Astuta was the best project to represent Malta in Venice. Curators Keith Sciberras (MT) and Jeffrey Uslip (NY), through the creative collabo- ration of Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci (MT), Arcangelo Sas- solino (IT) and the compo- sition of renowned Maltese conductor and musician Brian Schembri (MT), will be re-ar- ticulating Caravaggio's seminal altarpiece 'The Beheading of St. John the Baptist' (1608). For the Malta Pavilion, they will be creating a conceptual, immer- sive, site-specific installation that bridges biblical narratives with contemporary culture. Through their signature artis- tic visions, brothers Giuseppi Schembri Bonaci and Brian Schembri, together with Ar- cangelo Sassolino, shall trans- pose the zeitgeist of the Orato- ry of the Decollato in Valletta onto the Malta Pavilion, re-sit- uating Caravaggio's immanent themes within Modern life. The work shall celebrate the centuries-long art historical exchange between Malta and Italy, while addressing many of the global challenges we face in today's world, including ine- quality, justice, and peace. Col- lectively, their works prompt viewers to traverse a space where the tragedy, brutality and injustice of St. John's exe- cution are experienced in the present day, in real time and space. Through the re-pres- entation of St. John's beheading through a contemporary sculp- tural language, biblical trage- dy shall resonate with current world cultural events and aim to offers viewers a visceral ex- amination of justice and peace. Arcangelo Sassolino's art- work aims to offer the absorp- tive qualities and thematic overtones of Caravaggio's can- vas by unfolding the altarpiece into the space of the Malta Pavilion and into the realm of contemporary social and po- litical discourse. Sassolino's artwork shall be accompanied by a musical composition by Brian Schembri. Schembri's composed rhythmic pattern shall respect the exhibition's spiritual silence, then build to a cinematic crescendo and cul- minate in a cathartic climax. Throughout his oeuvre, Sas- solino has experimented with industrial, mechanical, and al- chemical manoeuvres to com- ment on the experiences and trials of human life. The artists' use and interrogation of met- al draws relation to the mate- rial and political histories of the twentieth century, which ushered in the era of steel and metal. Metal is an indicator of pro- gress and modernity, which, over a century, transformed the whole sustainability of the planet into one of a dangerous apocalyptic 'zone.' The sig- nificance of metal—steel—in the First and Second World Wars—its use in weaponry and steel-clad tanks, missile pro- duction and naval fleets—im- bued the ore with its capacity for violence and geopolitical transformation. Steel denotes our modern age: it has defined the century of wars, skyscrap- ers, military weaponry, and transportation. Industrializa- tion furthered Malta's own po- sition at the centre of the Med- iterranean and importance as a military fortress prior to its neutrality status, creating a re- newed place for metal within the national consciousness. In Diplomazija astuta steel— the material intrinsic to 20th century modernity and im- pending doom —is melted to allegorically and biblically usher in 21st century progress, healing, reconciliation, and by extension, justice and peace. Giuseppi Schembi Bonaci's artwork "Metall u Skiet" shall also form part of the installa- tion, in which excerpts from Psalm 139 shall be engraved in Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Greek, Maltese, Italian, Eng- lish, visually folding into and onto each other, rendered in three dimensions, and rede- fining humankind as a divine work of art. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci shall provide sculptural form to language, making the spiritual concrete and offering viewers a 21st century Rosetta Stone—a "multi-layered rela- tionship existing at different historical moments." His em- bedded calligraphic marks and interwoven texts shall mani- fest an élan vital—languages striving for clarity, struggling to un-conceal the concealed truth. Diplomazija Astuta shall transform the Malta Pavilion into a reverent, spiritual space in which the audience will be immersed into the aura of 'The Beheading', to engage with metal and silence, with fire as it is engulfed by water. The 59th International Art Exhibition will take place from 23rd April to 27th November 2022 and will be curated by Ce- cilia Alemani. It will be titled The Milk of Dreams, a name borrowed from a book by Le- onora Carrington. Alemani says, "the Surrealist artist de- scribes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the im- agination, and where everyone can change, be transformed, become something and some- one else. The exhibition takes us on an imaginary journey through metamorphoses of the body and definitions of hu- manity." Cecilia Alemani is a curator who has organized many ex- hibitions of contemporary art- ists. She is currently Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art, the programme of public art of the urban park in New York, and is the past curator of the Italian Pavilion at the Bien- nale Arte 2017. Malta returned to La Bien- nale di Venezia in 2017 after a 17-year absence, and again in 2019. Prior to that, it had participated with a special ex- hibition of Maltese Artists in 1958 and a National Pavilion in 1999. Both the 2017 Malta Pa- vilion, titled Homo Melitensis: An Incomplete Inventory in 19 Chapters, as well as the 2019 Malta Pavilion, titled Maleth / Haven /Port — Heterotopias of Evocation, received interna- tional press acclaim, garnering a host of high-profile media accolades and acknowledge- ments. (Top from left) Keith Sciberras and Jeffrey Uslip, Brian Schembri and Arcangelo Sassolino. (Bottom from left) Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci, Nikki Petroni and Esther Flury. Photo: Arts Council Malta