“In the work of art, the truth of an entity has set itself to work,” writes Martin Heidegger in his seminal essay The Origin of the Work of Art. “The nature of art would then be this: the truth of being setting itself to work.”

In the exhibition Clay/Craft/Concept currently showing at the Malta Society of Arts, the works on display exist on the threshold between art and craft, playing along the distinction between beauty and utility. Being works of clay, they beget a sense of familiarity and belonging in their viewers, who are not dissimilar from the human beings forming Neolithic clay pots millennia ago.

The MSA’s latest exhibition tips its hat to the object at the centre of the work of art, bringing together the works of 36 distinguished local and international artists, and features over 175 pieces, ranging from Neolithic artefacts from Malta’s ancient period (circa 5,200-2,500 BC) to contemporary sculptures.

Some of the pieces on display have been loaned by institutions such as MUŻA, Heritage Malta, the National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta Contemporary Shop, Marie Gallery 5, the Gabriel Caruana Foundation and various private collectors. Works by international artists have travelled from Germany, the US, England, Scotland, Italy, Latvia and Spain to be part of exhibition.

“I started thinking about this exhibition a couple of years ago when I began to notice a new wave of emerging ceramicists coming onto the scene here in Malta,” says the exhibition’s curator, Gabriel Zammit.

“They were creating amazing objects, with a high level of skill, and thinking very seriously and conceptually about what they were doing, but all making functional things, such as mugs and bowls and pots.

“At some point I got into a conversation with my friend and collaborator Vince Briffa. We were chatting about how craft-oriented artistic practice has been repositioned overseas and is taken as seriously as any other fine-art way of thinking, but this hasn’t quite happened in Malta yet, and so I thought it could be interesting to assemble a group of these emerging ceramics artists and place them into dialogue with sculptors and other artists doing things with clay.”

Zammit says that, in order to round out the exhibition, it would also be important to add an element of historical context to place the contemporary artists within a wider tradition of working with clay. This led him to reach out to institutions and private collections to borrow prehistoric artefacts and Baroque maiolica.

“It made sense to have this exhibition at the Malta Society of Arts because the MSA has long been a stronghold for supporting crafts,” he continued.

Indeed, the society’s committee in the past would advocate for and endorse craftspeople or companies.

Farsons Brewery, for example, was awarded the gold-medal award in 1929 for their skill in brewing beer, as well as Scicluna and Co. in 1903 for building handmade pianos in Malta, and Pirotta and Sons in 1965 for their artistic craftsmanship in silver.

This would also extend to ceramics, with ceramicists like Gabriel Caruana and Paul Haber also awarded the medal.

Nowadays, the MSA still has a school with nearly a thousand students and is the only institution that offers courses in crafts such as lacemaking, supporting a new wave of craftspeople and positioning them within a wider historical narrative.

Art or craft?

“At its core, the question we are asking with this exhibition is ‘what is the difference between a sculpture and a finely crafted but functional object such as a mug or a vase?’” says Zammit.

The oldest pieces in the show are from the Neolithic period in Malta, while the newest have been created specifically for the show.

“We have assembled a collection that includes everything from 3D-printed porcelain to installation works, performance, sculpture, raku-fired ceramics, found objects and more,” he continues.

The exhibition is eclectic and playful but also serious in its challenge, with Zammit saying he is curious to see how people will react to seeing a mug or a bowl by an emerging artist on the same plinth as a sculpture by an established and canonised artist, next to an object that is over 5,000 years old.

“In my curatorial practice I am interested in boundaries, edges and limits, the demarcation lines that establish who we are as human beings, and how we understand the world.

“Clay/Craft/Concept falls along the same axis in a general sense because it is looking into a conceptual boundary line between craft and fine art.

“It is a boundary line that is indicative of the way we think and create as human beings,” he says.

The question pertaining to this boundary has long been considered in the history of art and thought.

“Some of the best-known contemporary artists describe themselves as potters and craftspeople,” says Zammit. “Grayson Perry, for example, makes wonderfully irreverent pots and jars, and Edmund de Waal uses his installations of ethereal ceramic vases to investigate personal and collective histories.”

Careful consideration of the aesthetic value of functional objects has a precedent that weaves through history, all the way back to the very beginning, he continues.

“Think of the beautifully decorated instruments for measuring the movements of the stars that emerged from prehistoric dig sites all over Malta and Europe, the richly decorated Greek vases picked off the Mediterranean seafloor, and the carefully patterned textiles from Native American weavers.

“The line between art and crafts was self-consciously erased in the mid-20th century by the artists of the Bauhaus and, later on, Black Mountain College.

“People like Anni Albers (1899-1994) and Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) expanded the possibilities of craft by pushing the materials they were working with into new physical and conceptual territories. They reflected on their work in ways that instigated the same questions that were commonplace amongst painters, sculptors, and other more traditional artists.

“Post-Bauhaus, utility ceased to be a hindrance to artistic truth, and functionality is an interesting concept to think about, because in abstract terms every object has a function even if (as per Kant) an artwork’s purpose is its purposelessness.

“So why do we have this gut feeling that objects with a material function (such as holding water or being used as an eating utensil) are somehow lesser in their ability to produce artistic truth?”

Clay/Craft/Concept will be on display until September 26 at the Art Galleries of the Malta Society of Arts in Valletta. For more information and opening hours, please visit artsmalta.org/events or facebook.com/maltasocietyofarts.