Two years ago I visited the extensive, yet conceptually problematic, exhibition called Picasso and Modern British Art at the Tate Britain in London. The show endeavoured to associate Picasso’s multifarious oeuvre to the works of various 20th century British artists, drafting some unconvincing cor-relations between two different modernist contexts.
Nevertheless, it was a remarkable exposition of Picasso’s creative genius and inventive ability to experiment with style, form and media, featuring much work with which I was unfamiliar. It was a revelatory experience for me, a visual enlightenment of sorts, challenging previous knowledge and understandings of the artist and his work.
A comparable sensation oc-curred when witnessing the retrospective exhibition of Norbert Francis Attard’s work at Gozo Contemporary in Għarb. I studied Attard’s recent artworks for my undergraduate dissertation on Maltese installation art and have since remained abreast with his ongoing projects.
However, seeing the diversity of Attard’s artistic production throughout the past 50 years firsthand, led me on a discovery of the artist’s historical development. A modest selection of works, initiating from his teenage years up until the present day, were on display in the white cube gallery space.
Distinct from traditional exhibition set-ups, all the pieces, except for a few in the entrance corri-dor, were placed in one large room, allowing the visitor to simultaneously view Attard’s abstract paintings alongside photographic prints, interactive sculptures and pastel drawings.
The setting was an ideal one in which to comparatively study half a century of the artist’s output, to notice the marked contrasts in style and the intrinsic thematic and formal affinities which are consistently manifest throughout his many years of producing art.
Attard was adamant to distance himself from formal art training because he felt that an academic setting would obstruct his personal artistic development. Regardless of this, his architectural studies at the University of Malta taught him the principles of design, form, space and materials, knowledge which informs all the stages of his art.
Attard’s early works from the 1960s reveal a fascination with cubism, a direct influence from the work of Picasso and his uncle Frank Portelli. Cubism was relatively new to the Maltese art scene, its imagery being introduced by the Modern Art Circle in the 1950s. Therefore, Attard’s use of a cubist idiom during his formative years was unconventional to the Maltese context, even though it was superficially adopted as a style removed from its philosophical raison d’être.
Later he developed his own graphic style, creating posters for theatre and literary productions and the dynamic, chromatically-intense Gozo panoramas. One of the most delectable works from this series was Gozo Landscape (1979), an imaginatively compelling rendition of the undulating terrain, demonstrating a direct visual confrontation with the Gozitan setting.
These works expose an intimate understanding of the particular essence of the landscape’s form. Even the Walled Cities series of lithograph prints from the 1980s are palpable assimilations of space, denoting a sensitivity for the medieval delineations of Maltese urbanity.
The aerial views over the fortified spaces of Valletta, Mdina and the Citadel, with minute people visible in these immense settings, symbolise the aura of isolation harboured by the island’s geographical detachment from the rest of Europe.
The Walled Cities series truly captures the existentialist ex-perience of living in Malta, with its enclosures built to protect our land, traditions, and even our thoughts.
Maybe it was this acute sense of social subjectivity which led Attard towards abstraction in the 1990s. These works contrast to the lithographs, and even the vivid Gozitan landscapes, which were characterised by an emphasis on drawing, on form rendered through line.
With his abstract paintings, Attard crosses the fence into the realm of colour. Yet, despite this, there is a certain calculated feel about these works. Attard is, by nature, a perfectionist and a competent draughtsman who is unable to negate design when attempting to liberate his brushstrokes.
In the late 1990s, Attard decided to terminate his architectural practice and painting to pursue the methodology of installation art and other media such as photography, video and sculpture. Such a change is indicative of his artistic versatility, but also of his inquisitiveness and perpetual rethinking of self.
While on the surface, Attard’s art is harmonious, his works are theoretically complex
Due to the immensity and site-specific disposition of Attard’s installations, the viewer is unable to fully experience these works which largely define the contemporary persona of the artist, but this is always a problem which comes with the territory of working with installation.
From a formalistic approach, it is apparent that Attard’s installations are characterised by the artist’s idiosyncratic consideration for geometric precision, refined materials, spatial harmony and an architectural awareness.
However, a new sensibility for viewer interaction and spatial context is fundamental to his installations from the past decade and a half. All these qualities may be observed in his most recent work produced for the Verdala Sculpture Park, Spirit of the Wolf.
With regards to Attard’s photographic work, one can sense a conflicting balance between the more contemplative and analytical images of bastion walls, salt pans, the peculiarities of Strait Street and the impetuous snapshots of sudden observations restricted to a singular moment as seen in Victory, a shot of a Maltese cross-brandishing woman standing in a bath tub held up by Kerċem construction workers.
An interesting piece on show was Attard’s most recent sculptures from the Micronation Series, to be exhibited this month as a satellite exposition of Malta Design Week. Each sculpture is a conglomeration of various furniture elements, which Attard successfully juxtaposed to create one dynamic piece.
While on the surface Attard’s art is harmonious, his works are theoretically complex, exploring the tense and sometimes chaotic struggle of living.
He has been able to cross disciplinary boundaries with ease throughout his career in his attempts to investigate the diversity in the nature of his profound preoccupations.
His life represents a developing and multi-faceted exploration of trying to understand the essence and precariousness of being. Certainly, the exhibition is a testimony to the tremendous contribution Attard has made towards Maltese contemporary art, with each stage of his output being significant.
There is a lot to absorb and understand in this retrospective exhibition. It presents a compelling challenge to the viewer, but this fact proclaims Attard as one of the leading artists in recent Maltese history.
The exhibition can be viewed by private appointment until June 10. The artist may be contacted by calling on 79041051 or 21560016 or by sending an e-mail to norbert@norbertattard.com.