The relationship between artists and the powers-that-be is one fraught with danger.
State, religious and business institutions have always been the main benefactors of the arts, but no one said that that came with no strings attached.
The Church snuck up on Michelangelo’s nudes in the Sistine chapel and covered them up as soon as he died, Duego Riveira saw his large scale mural Man at the Crossroads, begun in 1933 for the Rockefeller Center in New York City, removed after a furore erupted over a portrait of Vladimir Lenin it contained.
Diego, a committed communist refused to remove Lenin from the painting, so Diego was ordered to leave, and his mural removed. As for governments, well just ask the artist who was commissioned to create the monument which now stands forlornly at Castille Square.
The thing is all these institutions are only concerned with one thing: self-glorification. Art simply doesn’t come into it. Bombast is the order of the day, so the artists’ predicament is always one, take the money and live to sing another day, or play the hero and quietly starve.
Valletta in particular has been hit badly with particularly ugly effigies of previous prime ministers and presidents pepper-sprayed around the city like a case of chickenpox
Most artists prefer singing, and who can blame them? After all, how bad can it be? Well very bad as it turns out. It's bad for the artist, it's often bad for the environment the artwork occupies and ultimately bad for Malta.
Over the last three decades we have seen a rash of bad art. Valletta in particular has been hit badly with particularly ugly effigies of previous prime ministers and presidents pepper-sprayed around the city like a case of chickenpox.
But the cherry on that cake must surely go to the incarnation of Jean De Valette, a preposterous, misplaced and mis-thought-through affair which speaks volumes about the poor taste of our politicians. I am surprised it didn’t come with triumphal pedestal and other baroque motifs.
However, it is not just the statues that this Grand Dame has had to deal with. She now has a mole on her face, in the bizarre ‘celebration’ of the City Gate that now stands (or squats) in front of the war monument.
This structure, one of the first ‘gifts’ handed to us by the new V18 apparatchik is unique in being the first three-dimensional structure that actually manages to be 2D. Better still it gives its back to the majority of viewers most likely to see it - those approaching it from St Anne Street.
Instead, its grey, louring façade (what else can one call it?) looks down on the poor miserable sods waiting patiently at the bus terminus in the vain hope that their bus will finally arrive. I should know, I’m often one of them.
And we have this history being repeated all along our island: a depressing cavalcade of bad art and public monuments from the horrendous Soviet style Workers’ Monument in Msida, to the gruesome War Memorial in Qormi, all doing their best to wear the heart out and make us just that little bit more miserable.
So it was immediate gratification when I recently passed by the roundabout just outside Luqa. For the past few weeks I had seen that particular spot being cleared of soil and I looked on in trepidation as I thought of what the next hideous piece of public art would be. So you can imagine my relief when it turned out to be a simple elegant fountain proffering gentle rain and playful water drops at passing motorists. Hurrah!
Finally some sense, I thought!. But the I remembered the fate of the Triton fountain. And sure enough the next day it was switched off.