'Only connect!' is the leitmotif that runs through E.M. Forester's masterpiece novel 'Howard's End'. Forester's cry to forge links based on mutual understanding that focus on what unites rather than divides is never more resonant in our troubled times. Two exhibitions taking place at MUŻA this summer invite audiences to do just that.
Aptly entitled 'Connections' Alfred Camilleri's exhibition explores how the "intuitively interactive" medium of art "can connect us, with each other and together, in an individual and universal manner." Through the elicitation of an emotional or personal meaning, the viewer is inspired to connect with the work in their own way. Camilleri hopes to play up the extent to which art is essential to our human existence. "In a global world where walls are easily raised but difficult to bring down, art mirrors our common basics of human nature, and it should help us build more of those bridges of solidarity and understanding towards each other's dignity."
'Connections' embodies this central theme in three sets of works. First, in the 'Scapes' series, objets trouvés go through a conceptual process of re-inventing and re-positioning their existence against the backdrop of a painted canvas. For instance, the ceramic fragments in 'Shards of a Memory' transcend their original use as utensils with an associated past story and their own archaeological discovery to be re-imagined by viewers who "extract further meaningful even personal connections with the work in question."
Camilleri uses a mixed media of mainly acrylics on canvas, oil-based paint, collage, metal, wood, plastic and ceramics. The 'Compo' series is inspired by the surface development of commercial packaging when unfolded. "From a utility object with volume, it takes on new physical characteristics in its flatness. I then give such forms their proper place in a more complementary, structured, painted, abstract composition," Alfred explains. The orthographic 'Compo 1 Magenta' with its seemingly graphical elevations and 'Terrum' recall an influential part of Camilleri's education in the technical field. "I always thought I might have practised as an architect or an archaeologist or both," he reminisces.
'Art Connects Us', an installation consisting of 13 framed collages, completes the set of works. Each collage with a selection of images from a number of international art magazines and exhibition catalogues serves to document humanity's "natural need for self-expression and creativity."
The vast surface expanse of the Mediterranean provides another bridge of connection in Cyril Sancereau's video installation 'Perpetual Motion'. "When you look at the sea you're facing the infinite. It is the regular rhythm of the waves that is conducive to returning to self," the Malta-based French artist elucidates. Sancereau has deliberately excluded all identifying features of place and shot his subject in black and white to create a timeless abstract landscape that invites viewers to ‘lose their bearings and give way to contemplation and meditation.’ Inspired by a quote from Baudelaire, the hypnotic motion of the sea offers a blank ever-changing canvas, a mirror, for audiences to project their inner life onto. In his photographic and video work, Sancereau has always tried to document the impermanence of landscape, focusing his attention on fragments of territory "where transition and the 'in-between' are revealed."
Filmed throughout the year in different places, the video focuses exclusively on the sea's surface, reflecting Cyril's preoccupation with the sea as a border. "Far away, there's another land. The surface also refers to the sailors, the history and the myths we've read about the sea," he elaborates.
Recently the Covid crisis has highlighted ambiguous feelings arising from a fear of isolation and a desire for protection. Living on an island surrounded by sea, Sancereau is fascinated by the insularity of being cut off from a mainland by the sea which is "like a wall that both protects and encloses us." Music structured by Lupo, a Berliner musician, helps to make the installation more immersive. Exploring the boundaries of noise and sound, the wall of sound contributes toward "provoking a consciousness for the ephemeral."
Within this fragile fluidity, in the interplay between connection and introspection, we offer mirrors up to each other to find out that as we dig deeper beneath history, culture and values, we are, after all, more alike than we think.
'Connections' will be held in the Camerone between June 17th and July 24th, whilst 'Perpetual Motion' is on exhibit in the Community Space from July 1st to August 7th. For further information, visit www.muza.mt.
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