Soap to Think With is the title of NORBERT FRANCIS ATTARD’s current exhibition. Joseph Agius talks to the artist and curator ANN DINGLI about what it is all about.

JA: Soap and soap boxes are the main media in this exhibition. Since time immemorial, soap has been used to cleanse and redeem, its constituent oils mixing with clean water to remove dirt and grime. Soap to Think With has a multi-thematic dimension, which becomes interlinked at a very basic level in my opinion – filthy sickness. Am I off the mark?

AD: This show highlights links between massive events in national history that we might otherwise have not made. The proxi­mity of events like the COVID-19 lockdown and the protests that occurred on the streets of Valletta vis-à-vis the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia are just two of the episodes that Norbert’s work is able to juxtapose and invite new consideration around.

It forces us to examine our behaviour within both scenarios – when, how and why we act collectively, and for the collective good, and when, how, and why we choose to abandon that action. And yes, of course, it highlights the volley of unsavoury events in Malta’s recent history and our ongoing pursuit to purge ourselves of their consequences. Soap becomes the medium that signifies that pursuit, whether it is successful or not.

Norbert Francis Attard. Photo: Dirk Stenger

NFA: Soap and soap boxes might seem predominant in this exhibition but many other materials and disciples were incorporated as well. These include chains, a padlock, a roulette, several carved Carrara marble pieces, black granite, a series of light boxes, ceramic holders and tiles, the use of stainless steel, different forms of printing, and much more. All these materials and different disciplines help to contribute to the three main exploratory themes, which I named Covid-19, Dirty Money and Invicta.

The title Soap to Think With was chosen towards the end of the three-year period. It was taken from Paul Sant Cassia’s essay that was written specifically for the exhibition catalogue, where he refers to a quote by Claude Lévi-Strauss that includes the phrase. My intuition about soap is that it provided an important connection between the three major themes of my exhibition. ‘Soap’ is what Lévi-Strauss would call a “specific operator”, being “good to think with”.

I chose the name of the show for this reason, and because soap is used profusely throughout the works as a metaphor.

Invicta II

JA: The COVID-19 pandemic, political corruption on a grand scale, including the Golden Passport Scheme, and Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination, the three main themes underlying the exhibition, have overwhelmed our country in the last few years. Is there no soap that can clean this grime, that can redeem us from these years of filth and disease? Has society changed into one that wallows in grime?

AD: One of the strongest themes in this show is that of culpability, which I focus on particularly in the exhibition’s central essay. Redemption, in whatever form it manifests, can only take place if we are willing to take ownership of our own role in the past, current and still unfolding fate of the country. Unless we are willing to undergo an exercise of self-reckoning and ‘surrender’ – as one of Norbert’s most powerful light-works suggests – to our liability within everything that has happened nationally, then we have no real basis for mending.

The End

JA: The soluble characteristics of the ingredients that make up soap makes the medium very transient and could be prone to atmospheric conditions like excessive heat. Does the transient nature of soap play a part in this exhibition?

NFA: Ephemerality in art is something that is very familiar to me, specifically through my work creating art installations that frequently had very short life spans, characterising the opposite of what is considered permanent in art. Soap could definitely be considered a transient material, as when consumed, it no longer exists. The carving of soaps in this exhibition was intended to last, but in itself this material is subject to weather conditions, the air and dust in the air can transform, maybe destroy, the soap in time. It would be interesting to see if this happens.

It highlights the volley of unsavoury events in Malta’s recent history

I associate ephemerality with memory, so if the soap pieces no longer exist, I believe their memory, in terms of their documentation, becomes an even more powerful message, more than when the work was existing. One can make a parallel to Daphne’s death. She no longer lives physically, but her memory, through her blog and legacy, is arguably much stronger than when she was alive.

Also, a transient material suggests movement, something evolving, never static. This reminds me firstly of how COVID-19 keeps transforming itelf over time. Finally, I believe there are still things to be still discovered regarding the corruption of the last 10 years, including real justice to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder. All three themes are in a sense ‘in flux’.

Body Builder and Super CV

JA: The plastic soap boxes are vessels of containment. They are like basic units, using their different colours to form glyphs and deliver messages. One wonders if the boxes contain soap or if their original function has been altered by recent events. Do events, especially traumatic ones as the country has experienced in recent history, always change the nature of self-evident objects?

AD: Norbert frequently uses the medium of found object in his work, and within this show does so through a ritualistic, repetitive methodology. This in itself mirrors the recurrency of how we act and respond within our varied crises as a race, nation and as individuals. Whether it’s the repeated instinct of cleansing ourselves physically during the pandemic, or the equally repetitive cycle of being shocked, motivated to act, and then quite quickly losing agency whenever there is a call to civic action around something that has threatened our collective moral integrity. The boxes, as I see them, represent this repetition and its associated emptiness.

Hitting the Wall

JA: You are dedicating Soap to Think With to your partner, Marisa, who died in 2020. This personal trauma must have also contributed to the exhibition. What are your thoughts about this? Is there any ‘soap’ that can release you from this loss?

NFA: On March 13, 2020, Valletta Contemporary, the gallery I had founded and by then managed for three years, was closed due to COVID-19. Because I put all my energy towards the gallery, I had neglected and shelved my personal projects, including my practice as an artist.

When Marisa and I started, like everyone else, our quarantine experience, I moved back to Gozo where I live and have my studio. My partner Marisa Vella, of 30 years, and myself, sat down and started making a list of priorities. The quarantine situation was a great opportunity to redefine our lives and was a time to reinvent ourselves on many different levels.  First on the list was to reinvent myself as an artist. Hardly a few days into the quarantine, I rea­lised immediately what could be a good start to create new art works.

Loss III

In 2015, I was given thousands of soap boxes by a local company. I had created one large work at Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin, a work I named The Truth May Not Set You Free, but afterwards I did not know what I should do with the rest of the soap boxes.

It took five years to realise what to create with the soap boxes because when COVID-19 arrived, it was clearly the right material to express what I was experiencing during that time. When I restarted as an artist again, the works created during the first 12 weeks or more were related to the pandemic situation.

Lockdown 2020

Surrender III

Nationless State

The artist with 'Sole' and 'Dirty Money'.

Money

Purity and Danger

Loss V

Unfortunately, Marisa passed away suddenly on April 28, 2020. Instantaneously, I was presented with my own great personal loss. Loss became a key word at the time, so I needed to express it in many of my works. Loss became an even more important word as eventually it included the loss of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the loss of integrity in our institutions, the loss in terms of Malta becoming ‘a country on the FATF grey list’, not to mention the huge loss of people during the pandemic.

 Soap to Think With, curated by Ann Dingli, can be viewed by appointment by phoning +356 7904 1051 or sending an e-mail to norbert@norbertattard.com. Entrance is free. The rest of the interview is available at timesofmalta.com.