Contemporary art in Malta

A collective art exhibition was inaugurated in the newly restored vaults of Pinto Stores on July 1. Organised by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts as part of the Summer Arts Festival 2005 and curated by George Glanville, the exhibition went on until August 7.

For five whole weeks 43 individuals displayed their works, ranging from paintings to sculpture, from ceramics to installation, under the theme "Six generations of contemporary artists".

An exhibition whose theme should afford some rather important references to the history and state of the local art scene seems to have been overseen by the art critics. No significant critique on the subject seems to have appeared yet.

Unfortunately, this is part of an unstable cultural scene. Critics are the ones who are expected to make cultural evaluations, a responsibility they have chosen to shoulder. It is their role to rise to such occasions, when standards may be gauged without fear of favour, due credits genuinely given, cross-influences and innovations exposed.

The state of affairs of any arts scene does not depend solely on artists' contribution, or, in this case, on their possible lack of it.

But then, this does not mean that the writing has stopped. The writing will resume, as often happens, to help the emergent amateur feel confidently professional and established - the perfect recipe for two wrongs, namely, indiscriminate monopoly and camouflaged mediocrity.