Malta’s Ambassador of Culture FRANCIS SULTANA shares his fourth monthly arts and culture column in collaboration with Times of Malta, in which he presents his views about the sobering survey by the Arts Council on the local culture sector.

Read parts one, two and three.

As ambassador of culture for Malta, I wanted to start this month’s column with my thoughts on the recent survey carried out by the Arts Council, which offered some sober reading for those of us involved in the arts sector.

There are some glimmers of hope – people agreeing to pay for some cultural events post-pandemic is a great stamp of approval. However, while 73 per cent of people surveyed have attended at least one or more arts or cultural events, with the majority of those being the young, I think this survey is an urgent wake-up call of which everyone must take notice.

COVID has had and will continue to have long-lasting effects on the national psyche of Malta as it has around the world. Reluctance to be in crowds or to be indoors will be a shadow that will stay with us until we are, at last, finally rid of the worst of this pernicious disease.

However, while this is a factor that cannot be ignored, I strongly believe we now stand at a pivo­tal moment for Malta and for our arts and cultural landscape. It is something we must take seriously.

'Amy: Beyond the Stage’ is the first major retrospective of the late great singer Amy Winehouse. Photo: Studio Moross

We have to ask ourselves why people feel disconnected with the current arts and culture on offer and how we can and must engage them once again, as we move out of the pandemic? We have a great moment to re-think, to re-set and to revive where we go now as a country and this is a conversation that we must all engage with.

I am lucky to be closely involved with many organisations in London such as the V&A Museum, the Design Museum and the Serpentine Galleries. These organisations have, over the past few decades, completely changed the way they engage with the public in the types of shows and exhibitions they offer, the way they blend high and low culture, mass entertainment and intellectualism, shows like McQueen, Bowie, Fabergé, Dior… these have all entirely changed the artistic environment of the UK and what we consider to be of cultural value. 

These organisations sell tickets – and lots of them – because they listen to what is happening around the world and then curate shows that respond to that interest. There is no point trying to pursue a road less travelled, as really it leads us nowhere! It is much better to try and create cultural interest within the main highways of life. Some may think this to be populist, but I say there is nothing wrong with being popular.

In 2023, MICAS will open in Malta. This will be a real moment of opportunity for the arts in our country. We will have an exhibition space with international reach that will attract and host important global exhibitions.

‘SEEING by KAWS’, 2022 (augmented reality sculpture at Serpentine North Gallery). Photo: Courtesy of Kaws And Acute Art

Not only will MICAS be focused on curating events and exhibitions across the arts that will appeal to a wide audience – from visual art to design to performance, fashion to music – but we will also focus on education, ensuring that the young people of Malta will have access to contemporary art and culture at an international standard.

We will be inviting creatives to come to Malta who can inspire and educate our next generations. Across the arts in Malta we all need to engage with the wider community, to open up the arts beyond the walls of our museums, our churches and our galleries and really make culture come alive for our population, young and old alike.

Beyond our shores

There are three exhibitions that I feel are very representative of what could be the way forward for Malta. Shows that are attracting huge audiences of wide and diverse ages and socio-economic backgrounds.

KAWS at the Serpentine Galleries in London is a show that is appealing to families and young adults and, though it is controversial for some, it has certainly got everyone talking! 

Now more than ever we have the opportunity to create shows and exhibitions that bring our country together

KAWS New Fiction, running till February 27, is the first solo exhibition of artist KAWS (Brian Donnelly). Presented both physically in the gallery and alongside in augmented reality, the exhibition, presented in collaboration with Acute Art, was also launched virtually on the computer game Fortnite.

Straddling street art, product design and pop culture, an app will also allow the show to exist as augmented reality and be shared on social media, opening up the work and the gallery to a global youth-driven audience, many of whom may have never considered attending an art exhibition before. 

Another museum I am involved with is the Design Museum in London. Amy: Beyond the Stage, running until April 10, is the first major retrospective of the late great singer Amy Winehouse and will also appeal to a hugely diverse non-traditional audience, drawn as much to Amy Winehouse’s music as the incredible artwork and photography that surrounded her career.

The exhibition features music, lyrics and unseen personal items from teenage notebooks to her vintage fashion. This is a stunning homage to pop culture and again shows how culture can appeal to many different groups of people who perhaps might not “think” they are into the arts.

Over in Paris, a major exhibition has just opened – Yves Saint Laurent aux Musées. Not one, not two, but six of Paris’s major museums are involved: Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée National Picasso, Paris and Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Paris.

In the past few weeks, we have sadly said goodbye to two of fashion’s biggest names, André Leon Talley and Thierry Mugler (whose show we featured in last month’s column) and this most wonderful of celebrations of Yves Saint Laurent allows us a moment to look back at the golden era of 20th century fashion, when life was truly a golden catwalk of decadence and glamour.

‘Yves Saint Laurent Portrait’, 1971. Photo: Jeanloup Sieff

I truly believe the collaborations that stand at the heart of this major undertaking is what really makes this series of shows so special and is something that I think sets the tone of what we can aspire to here in Malta.

Created by the Foundation Pierre Bergé on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Yves Saint Laurent’s fashion house, the show takes visitors on a tour of Paris, offering an insight into the designer’s life-long dialogue with art and literature and his love of the city ‒ from his roots in the contemporary art of the time to his fascination with gold and decorative arts and his passion for the work of Marcel Proust to his fashion archives and his collaborators.

Visitors can make up their own itineraries and offers, by its unique direction, new and unexpected perspectives of the work of one of the most celebrated talents of the last century. 

The collaboration on show in Paris and the widening of arts and culture into new, emerging and very exciting areas in London all show the arts aren’t something that should sit on the sidelines in our national cultural consciousness; they should be something that talk to as wide a group of people as possible.

Why shouldn’t computer games, pop music, product design and fashion all be part of the cultural landscape? We must endeavour to reach out to the entire population, rather than wringing our hands in despair.

Now more than ever we have the opportunity – a wonderful moment for us – to create shows and exhibitions that bring our country together, after the past two years, to celebrate, to entertain, to inform, to surprise and ultimately to give us a collective purpose and art can certainly do that.  

 Stay tuned for the next monthly cultural column in March. If you would like to check out what I am up to each month, follow me on Instagram @francis_sultana.