Ġorġ Mallia:The Metal Art of Marie Louise Kold
LIM Publishing, 2017

One book that has lived on my cluttered desk for many years is Georges Bataille’s Lascaux or The Birth of Art. Since I refer to it so frequently, this book remains always close to the top of one of the many stacks of books which keep me company.

Lately, another handsome art book landed on my desk, very close to Bataille’s The Birth of Art. This is The Metal Art of Marie Louise Kold; with an analytical and biographical essay written by Ġorġ Mallia and published by LIM Publishing, Malta-Sweden (2017). I must admit that, as soon as I started leafing through this book, I felt I had to reach for Bataille’s book and open the two books side by side, to be able to glance from one to the other.

But why does this new publication remind me so much of my favourite art book? On the face of it, the two books cannot be more different. On the one hand, Bataille was writing about prehistoric cave painters who, due to their immense distance in time and culture, were completely unknown to him. In addition, due to the same distance, the original motivation, purpose and meaning of these paintings remain equally mysterious.

In direct contrast, Mallia’s book is about an artist and artworks which can hardly be more familiar to him, since he has known the artist and her works since the early stages of her artistic development. And, as he declares in the opening paragraphs, the artist is now his wife. While Bataille writes about what is most distant and alien, Mallia writes about what is closest and most familiar.

A scent of rain

But, despite this intimacy between artist and critic in Mallia’s book, I am convinced that the common thread which spans across and connects these two books is the fact that they both engage with works of art which are at once alien, intriguing and hauntingly beautiful.

It is difficult to dispute the beauty of Kold’s works, or not to stand in awe by the way the artist draws this beauty out of the hard, cold materials and gives them life through processes which are equally harsh and ‘corrosive’.

It is equally difficult not to wonder at her alchemical powers to make metals weep, bleed and blossom. Though Kold’s works cannot be more distant in time, method or form, from prehistoric cave paintings, her art somehow captures and shares in the originality, audacity and completeness of prehistoric art. 

The raw power of Kold’s works in fact makes writing a review of Mallia’s book a difficult task, as these works keep distracting the critic from focusing on and reviewing the publication as such, without falling under the spell of the art itself. Another point to note here is that the making of the book itself was intended as a special gift by the author to his spouse.

As we know, gifts are in their very nature, personal and delicate gestures that often take on a life of their own, which does not necessarily follow the path or intentions of the giver or receiver. 

As the full title proclaims, this production consists of two elements. The first element is the presentation of the metal artworks by Marie Louise Kold which are generously offered for the reader’s appreciation in a massive amount of full colour images. The second element is Mallia’s “analytical and biographical essay”.

The presentation of the artworks is rendered through beautifully photographed and produced images, covering full pages or spreads, in which the vast majority have retained their sharpness and colour rendition. These photographs do justice to the art with their crispness clearly capturing the intricate detail of the works, the contours of the metals and the richness of the colours elicited by the patination and the chemical reactions used in the processes employed by the artist. While many of the photos show whole works, others use a shallow depth of field to highlight particular features or striking details. In a very few cases, such as those showing the Valanga ta’ Kliem (Avalanche of Words) the photos used could have profited from higher resolution, however, these are really too few to detract from the overall high quality which this publication exudes.

Throughout the book, the images clearly predominate the written text which thus remains non-intrusive and leaves the reader free to appreciate the images of the artworks without feeling compelled to follow the text too closely.

This brings us to the second element of the book, the “analytical and biographical essay” by Ġorġ Mallia. The author starts by introducing us to the history of his relationship with the artist. In the beginning of this section, the reader meets the artist through the author’s eyes, as it were, and follows her artistic development through the periodic encounters between the artist and the writer. Moving in parallel to this mentoring relationship, the reader is also let in on the developing personal relationship which would eventually culminate in the bond of marriage. In the initial few pages we are, therefore, taken on a dual love story, two parallel emotional journeys. There’s the artist’s love affair with her chosen artistic medium and techniques and the growing bond between the artist and the writer.

Following this introductory dual biographical note, the reader finds ‘An essay from 2003’, written by Mallia and giving the reader further insight into the various routes and influences which fed the artist along her development.

The author has managed to maintain a balance between analysis and description without distracting the reader from appreciating the works themselves

The author’s analysis of the present stage of Kold’s artistic production is picked up again immediately after the 2003 essay. Here, readers who may not be following the text very closely may not notice that the author is now analysing a different stage of the art. It is at this point that such readers may be tempted to flip back to the initial pages of the book to refer to the contents page to regain orientation; only to find that there is none.

Portrait of Estelle, future queen of Sweden

Although some readers may find this odd, I feel that this helps to drive the message that this text is not meant to be approached in the linear way that contents pages normally suggest.

In more conventional publications, readers normally expect to find the list of contents which functions as an initial map to guide the reader through the text. In Mallia’s publication, the absence of such a list, combined with the way a number of essays about the artist’s works, also written by Mallia, intersperse the main text, seem to invite the reader to leaf through the book, indulging in the images and dipping in and out of the text where and when one may feel the need. 

Again, this may not work for all readers. But, when it does, it creates the effect that the artist and critic have opened the door of their abode and invited the reader to explore and enjoy the different rooms, the nooks and crannies, and to make themselves at home, wherever they feel most comfortable.

In a similar way, the reader is invited to navigate and wander around the text, as though walking through and exploring rooms and levels. The reader sometimes  moves boldly and at other times with more caution and respect, often hesitating, doubling back, taking second peaks or slowing down to soak in the space. Through this process, probably after more than one visit, the reader may experience a growing familiarity and friendship, which is nourished by the virtual hospitality which the structure, style and content of this book seem to offer.

Stated more simply, the text itself emulates the artist’s stylistic journey, with its many “side-roads coming out of the main thoroughfare”, which although being clearly “different stylistic branches of the same tree” are nonetheless never “easy to map”.

Having said this, Mallia does aid the reader somewhat by categorising the artist’s works into stylistic sub-sections such as The Nudes, The Portraits, The Touch Works and Books, among others. While following the presentation of these stylistic categories, the reader is again invited to digress by way of another of the author’s essays, this time from 2005.

Landscape in context

The author’s analysis of the styles and components renders valuable insight for the reader who wants to go further than the visual celebration offered by the images. Of particular interest is the author’s analysis of the artist’s engagement with the written word. The insights into what motivates the artist to appropriate and incorporate the written word into her works are particularly interesting and enlightening. 

Two more essays penned by Mallia bring the text to a close. These two essays again provide glimpses into the artist’s different styles, and experiments. One such experiment, dealt with under the title Kold Fusion, presents works from 2016, which were conceived “to be combined with a seamless background produced from dark fabric”. The last essay, entitled Lines of Flight, presents a short article that accompanied the artist’s exhibition at St James Cavalier, Valletta in 2014. The author also curated this exhibition.

Finally, the Afterword, penned by the artist herself, presents the reader with the opportunity to encounter Kold directly, in her own words. Here, the reader finally witnesses, first hand, the undiluted passion of the artist for her art, and her deep gratitude for her life-companions.

In the first passages of this review I openly declared my esteem and enthusiasm for the aesthetic merits of the artworks of Kold. The main question that I tried to answer in what followed was whether Mallia’s text supports the beauty of the images and whether it adds or detracts from the experience of the art through this publication.

Although, I must admit that there were times, while exploring this book, when I feared that the intimate silence of the artworks may be disturbed by an abundance of words, on the whole I feel that the words and artworks talk well to each other. The author has managed to maintain a balance between analysis and description, without distracting the reader from appreciating the works themselves. 

The book is also available for free download from the artist’s website. Marie Louise Kold will be holding an exhibition of her works at the National Library, Valletta between May 7 and June 2.

www.mlkold.com/the-book