From artefacts dating back to the 1850s to modern objets trouvé, Consume is an exhibition that takes a long, hard look at the cyclical life of everyday objects made from natural materials, and what they say about us and our daily rituals. Here, artist Victor Agius explains the concept behind the exhibition to Iggy Fenech.
Everyday objects may seem mundane at first; in fact, the only time we seem to be aware of them is when we acquire or discard them, often ignoring their role in our lives and the process that takes them from being brand new to being unusable… This was also the case for artist Victor Agius until, two years ago, a commission for Pjazza Teatru Rjal (PTR) was consumed by flames and landed him in a hospital bed.
“It all started when I was creating a giant, three-metre expanded polystyrene and wood structure for a column at PTR, whose intricately carved Corinthian capital was lost during the war,” says Agius, who studied at the University of Malta as well as Central St Martin’s College for Art and Design in London. “Three months into creating the commissioned structure, however, an accident led it to be consumed by flames and subsequently destroyed.
“Luckily, I was unhurt by the flames but the toxic fumes I inhaled meant that I had to spend time in hospital and away from the piece. When I returned, it seemed like the commission would not actually be finalised, but as soon as I went back to the field, the pungent smell of burnt materials and the transformed sculpture spoke to me on a much deeper level than they had before, and it was at that moment that I realised that the project had evolved.”
Victor went on to submit another proposal to PTR, which reflected both the original site-specific sculpture, as well as his then-recent experience. With his new idea confirmed, he worked on the new piece, which was to be 80 per cent burnt, revealing the skeleton underneath as an ode to what had happened to Victor, yet just three days into the two-month timeframe originally allocated for the sculpture to be publicly displayed atop PTR, the piece was taken down.
Agius created a multi-dimensional exhibition that is anything but ordinary
“The piece, which also included a storyboard of the history of the theatre (such as when it burnt down in 1873 and when it was bombed during World War II) and the evolution of the sculpture, was a very important one for me personally,” the artist continues. “Having had it removed without my consent – with one of the reasons cited being that contemporary art shouldn’t be displayed as public art but should rather be in a museum specifically for such art so that people would not be shocked and deterred from modern art – transformed my initial disappointment and frustration into determination to continue building the narrative and developing my statement.’’
The resulting exhibition, Consume, looks at the cyclical life of objects, using multiple mediums to understand the link between daily objects and materials taken from nature, and which will be returned to nature. Yet, instead of focusing on the creation and discarding of objects humans shape to help them in their daily rituals, Consume looks at the resources we consume and how time and use consumes them in return.
It took Agius two years of work and research to finally unveil Consume at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta, and what ensued was a poignant mix of objects and media, whose tale has seemingly – but not entirely – ended.
Among these are objets trouvé (found objects), work in video and audio recorded in a quarry in Gozo, which is where the artist is from, as well as burnt furniture, a piano, ceramics, fragments of architectural limestone carvings from a local baroque church dating to the 1850s, and an 1873 engraving. Through these, Agius wanted audiences to look at the process rather than the original item, however.
“The research started immediately after the fire, when I collected the remains, including the ashes, the melted polystyrene, and the twisted steel structures, among other objects,” he explains. “I also started collecting cuttings from newspapers and photos from social media that mentioned the accident. Over the past two years, I also made numerous visits to junkyards, antique shops, parish archives, the Civil Protection Centre in Gozo, and the Tas-Simar quarry to collect objects and shoot hundreds of pictures and numerous videos. Each object and medium was then charged with the narrative of the accident I experienced, and the journey that followed, which changed my mind about the life of objects and how their story evolves naturally.”
Working together with international curator Irene Biolchini, who specialises in contemporary art, Agius created a multi-dimensional exhibition that is anything but ordinary – something that will come as no surprise to fans of the artist who was behind projects like Layers, which took place at St Agatha’s Catacombs, Ġgantija 2013, and Individui Universali at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza during the Settimana dell’Contemporaneo.
“Victor, here, decided to exhibit rotten materials: close to the ashes, in fact, the spectator can find old objects, as well as leftovers discarded by the building industry; objects consumed by man rather than time,” says Biolchini, who first met the artist in 2013. “It deals with some eternal and spiritual concepts, such as the ritual purification of fire, and ashes as the ultimate witnesses of something that is lost forever, at least in its physical dimension.
“The core of the project resides precisely in the dichotomy between the eternal and universal passage of time and the human consumption of matter and earth, calculated in our earthly time. Through this confrontation, the artist is willing to suggest to us the ephemerality of today’s consumption of soil and goods, suggesting a new, spiritual (but not necessarily religious) life beyond things.”
What strikes me the most about Consume, however, is Agius’s passion for the everyday objects our society takes so for granted. Indeed, from the first time he spoke to me about it, I almost saw this more as an anthropological project that looks at the intricacies of daily life and the objects we use – which, let’s face it, tell the true story of who we are.
“It is an artist’s role to be alert and vigilant and relate, enquire, read, transcend and transmit the mundane and trifling happenings and objects around him,” Agius explains when I mention this.
Consume, it seems, has many layers that await to be discovered. Will it be the poignancy of a once useful object turned to dust that will speak to you? Or will it be the reminder that everything in this world must one day cease to exist in its physical form? “That is ultimately down to the viewer,” he concludes.
Consume runs until next Sunday at Spazju Kreattiv, within St James Cavalier in Valletta. The exhibition forms part of the Spazju Kreattiv Programme and VIVA 2017, and is supported by Fairwinds Management Ltd, Gozo Expess Services Ltd and the Civil Protection of Gozo. On Thursday, Renzo Spiteri will perform Consume/An Immersive Sound Performance at Space C4 at Spazju Kreattiv.