Social animals, such as ants, wolves and human beings, develop attachments and relationships that are the roots of their societies. In the human case, feelings, expressed as contrasting emotions, occur as interactions that dictate the directions of the narratives that constitute non-domestic life.
The protected nest, the home, has a finite number of characters that we call a family unit. Its members, grouped together through design or accident, have to learn how to cope, support, criticise and antagonise each other in an ongoing attempt to peacefully co-exist.
This has its counterpart outside the four walls of the house where we find that such interactions are more casual as there are no blood ties involved. Members of a community, a larger family of sorts, react to circumstances and to each other but without obligations, except those society insists upon. News, gossip and hearsay are weaved in the neighbourhood’s daily history, a tree that branches out from homes’ microcosms.
Other environments like the village piazza, church, band club, the promenade of a seaside town, the popular thoroughfares of other towns and villages, expand the narrative to include a wider and more national perspective. A court of law, a parliament chamber, a football ground, a village feast are fertile hunting grounds for the artist who is a caricaturist and a social commenter.
'Marilyn ta' Malta'This collection of sculptures by Francesca Balzan revolve around the neighbourhood of Ta’ Liesse, on the shores of Valletta’s Grand Harbour, which is also where Studio 87, the gallery that hosts the exhibition, is located.
The site-specific component of the enterprise is of the essence as Balzan’s sculptures document actual persons whose life happened, and is still happening, around this area which boasts a history of feverish mercantile activity. It is a history that experienced important historical events of national relevance.
The micro-community of Ta’ Liesse, with its small chapel at the centre of the activity, mirrors the Maltese general village or town pattern, the higher ecclesiastic power at the centre of it all.
The exhibition posterBalzan, who is an art historian besides having been curator of Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum, had access to the National Archives of Malta (Santo Spirito, Rabat). This provided a treasure trove of information for the artist.
Official documents such as passport applications, photos and all, are housed within these archives. The artist focused on the images accompanying the applications, however, relating to men and women who had lived in addresses in the environs of Ta’ Liesse, and transcending time.
A brief art-historical context to caricature
One comes across many examples in the history of art in which artists turned to caricature to comment on home-grown situations. William Hogarth (1697-1764) is regarded as one of the forerunners of the genre, jibing at the capitalist society of his time and caustically denouncing it for its shortcomings.
His series of paintings (which were destroyed) and prints titled A Harlot’s Progress tell the story of a woman who negates the safety and serenity of the English countryside to start a new life as a prostitute in London.
'Madame Marie'Vice and financial necessity are portrayed by Hogarth as a caricature in which the hilarity is dubious. The young girl dies, in the concluding piece, from a venereal disease she contracted from one of her clients. Unlike Balzan’s loving, innocent but impossible conversations, Hogarth’s morality tale is indeed an ominous one.
Hogarth investigated the ‘comic’ facial characteristics as an expression of a person’s vulnerability. He was not after the grotesque in the face, but rather the grotesqueness of the human condition.
The site is of the essence, as Balzan’s sculptures document persons whose life happened, and is still happening, around this area
Honoré Daumier’s (1808-1879) personal travails as a young boy entailed having to seek employment to make ends meet; hence his familiarity with French law courts and his telling caricatures of its protagonists. His next employment was as a bookseller’s clerk in one of Paris’ most frequented areas.
'Oh Yes!'Characters of what he called a comédie humaine paraded before his observant eyes. He took in the idiosyncrasies of French society, men and women of standing, the bourgeoisie, low classes and criminals driven to their lot by dire personal situations.
The French artist revelled in this milieu as all these characters lent themselves to his caricatural genius, which was not limited to painting and graphics. His ability at caricatural sculpture can be admired in the series of small busts that were commissioned by a satirical journal that was his employer, to grace the window of its premises. These featured politicians pertaining to the July monarchy – the springboard for these works were their official portraits. He accentuated facial characteristics of this pre-existing work to pour ridicule and scorn on them.
Although one might find parallels with the work of Balzan, Daumier is ruthless and grittily exposes the wiliness and scheming attitude of the male political class of his time. Balzan’s sculptures, although compositionally very palpable and, like Daumier’s sculptures, do invite touch, they do not, however, carry an ominous undercurrent of male corruption in high places.
'Parir b'Xejn'Balzan releases her characters from such baggage and portrays them as jovial and non-calculating men and women, shorn off the necessity to be successful at all costs and enjoying life as it unfolds on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The women in particular are indeed portrayals of liberated women.
Willie Apap’s Conspiracy Trial Drawings of 1947 are some of the most famous of Maltese work in the genre. The trial in the aftermath of WWII, where the Maltese artist was wrongly accused of treason and acquitted soon afterwards, was an opportunity for him to indulge his ability as a caricaturist by sketching his fellow inmates, jurors, lawyers and the judge. One can draw comparisons with Daumier’s print series of court caricatures; the biting flippancy is notable in both artists. A general boredom that encroaches court procedures is evident, a contrast to Balzan’s context of communal and fun spirit of being together and belonging.
'Enjoying Myself'When discussing the sculptural caricatural genre in a Maltese contemporary setting, one cannot fail to mention Andrew Diacono. He shares with Balzan this redeeming aspect. His protagonists, male and female, are likeable and appear to have a naively sensitive nature. Like Balzan, he portrays common folk dealing with life situations. His full figure males are usually very rotund but tottering on spindly legs, ready to collapse under the body’s Boteresque weight. His female figures are generally Modiglianesque, elegant and trim. One feels Diacono denigrates the male species and idealises female beauty. One can decipher a telling feminist dimension in Diacono’s oeuvre, which somehow relates to Balzan’s present exhibition.
The conversations
Balzan imagined the ‘impossible conversations’ that would have been possible had years not separated these men and women. She creates poignant situations in which the women belong entirely to themselves, untethered by relationships and thus liberated from the daily chores and the mores of their families. These are dignified members of society and thus are not relegated to a secondary role of keeping the family house in order, to being an acquiescent corollary to the husband, and to carrying on the husband’s family line through childbearing.
'Traveller's Madonna'Balzan’s statement could be considered as a feminist stance by some; however, it transcends any simplistic notions of a woman being superior to a man. Balzan’s characters seem to breathe, engrossed in conversation as they are; Ta’ Liesse is their stage. William Shakespeare words ring so true: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances.” Impossible Conversations is about this.
Impossible Conversations, curated by Justine Balzan Demajo, is hosted by Studio 87, Liesse Hill, Valletta, and will run until December 11. Please consult the event’s Facebook page for opening hours. COVID-19 restrictions apply.