Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/439085
II This Week maltatoday, Sunday, 28 december 2014 Though it may sound like the her- ald of a bad year when you first hear it, the fact that Austin Camilleri's one-legged horse statue, Zieme, was the highlight of this year's cultural happenings is cause for celebration. Crowning the first edition of the Valletta International Visual Arts Festival (VIVA), Zieme was significant, not because it was a lovingly rendered equestrian statue boasting a poignant lack, but be- cause of its strategic position by the nearly-completed Renzo Piano City Gate. Standing proud and facing parliament head-on, it was perhaps a too-schematic provocation, but still a necessary one. The tone of light mockery was certainly welcome in a state-sponsored artwork of this prominence, and cou- pled with the high-caliber attempt that was VIVA in general, it was a call for both elevated artistic standards, and accompanying discourse. While many local culture- vultures 'face-palmed' their way through the bemused online commentators who saw nothing more than a one-leg- ged horse cluttering up the city gate entrance, the fact that even the then freshly-instated Culture Minister Owen Bonnici recognized the potential satirical bite of the piece suggested a more sensitive, mature approach to public art from the government – whether this is genuine and truly felt is a complete- ly different story, of course. Government-sponsored initiatives within the arts always run the risk of turning into propaganda, of course, and this danger perhaps grew keener this year, as among the hand-picked and firmly within-the- Labour-camp cultural stalwarts like Jason Micallef and Albert Marshall, Mario Philip Azzopardi was made Artistic Director of the Val- letta 2018 Foundation. Azzopardi's international experience as a film director and producer may give him added clout, and despite middling results since the runaway stage hit Jiena Nhobb, Inti Thobb, his theatrical impetus to produce plays in Maltese is essentially a good one. But even if we shut an eye at the elephant-in-the-room fact that he's yet another Labour-friendly ap- pointee (he had directed televised campaign videos for the party in the run up to the general elections), an anti-Islamic rant has problematized his appointment somewhat. Admittedly ut- tered on Facebook months before his appointment was announced, Azzopardi's blanket attack of Islam was pointed out to the Culture Minister during an otherwise innocuous press conference, and soon enough, calls for Azzopardi's resignation started to pop up, Azzopardi all the while making it clear that it was 'extreme' forms of Islam that he criticized in his now- infamous Facebook missive. It's another reminder of the pit- falls of social media, but it also puts into relief the still somewhat hazy role of the Valletta 2018 Founda- tion. If Valletta is indeed to become a hub of culture in 2018, attracting a healthy dose of cultural tourists in the process, can it be so brusque about sensitivity towards other cultures and religions? Azzopardi's rant also flies in the face of an am- bition expressed by Jason Micallef, his own chairman at V18. Speaking to MaltaToday last June, Micallef stressed that combating racial prejudice is one of the Foundation's key aims. "I think A one-legged horse Standing majestic and proud despite its evident 'lack', austin camilleri's Zieme was the runaway highlight of malta's cultural life in 2014 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Ray attaRd Nicole Scherzinger performing at the Isle of MTV last summer. Below: Austin Camilleri's Zieme