{"id":3913,"date":"2025-01-29T06:23:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T06:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artscouncil.abcnow.xyz\/?page_id=3913"},"modified":"2026-04-17T09:47:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:47:38","slug":"launch-of-the-malta-pavilion-at-the-biennale-arte-2024","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/home\/launch-of-the-malta-pavilion-at-the-biennale-arte-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Malta at the Venice Biennale 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMalta at the Venice Biennale 2026\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Malta is once again present at La Biennale di Venezia in 2026, with a pavilion titled No Need to Sparkle: Experiments in Love and Revolution<\/em> showcased in the Arsenale.<\/p>

Commissioned by Arts Council Malta, the pavilion sees Adrian MM Abela, Charlie Cauchi and Raphael Vella represent Malta under the curatorship of Margerita Pul\u00e8, with architectural design by SON Architects. The pavilion, which is conceived as a space that allows truth to reposition itself in the world, introduces doubt not as capitulation, but as a framework for understanding the world with openness and empathy.<\/p>

The Maltese pavilion brings together three separate screen-based works that each reveal shared preoccupations with authenticity, post-colonial self-determination, myth-making, autonomy, embodiment and the phenomenology of the image. Across the project, these concerns surface through works that move between archival material, cinema, popular culture, historic and spiritual texts, creating a space which certainty gives way to reflection, curiosity and collective empathy.<\/p>

With Declaration of Dependence (A Game of Surrender)<\/em>, Adrian MM Abela presents a composition structured as a stage divided into three temporal zones. To the left, eight coins spin on a table, representing the future. To the right, a drawing depicts the past. At the centre, viewed through an opening in the curtain, the personification of Malta exists within a game engine.<\/p>

Each time a visitor steps onto the rug, Melita delivers a unique declaration, assembling an experience specific to that visitor: an act of divination selected by chance for that moment. The work includes additional veiled elements, accessible only through interaction with the custodian, while further aspects circulate through word of mouth. It is a work that simultaneously reveals and conceals, unfolding through stagecraft, built environments, software, performance and chance.<\/p>

Charlie Cauchi\u2019s Dolce<\/em> is a single-channel 4K video accompanied by sculptural elements in chocolate and mixed materials. The installation extends her sustained engagement with Malta as both setting and psychic terrain, unfolding through a dreamlike, often surreal visual language.<\/p>

Drawing from cinema history, from the restless mood of Fellini\u2019s La Dolce Vita<\/em> to the symbolic shadow of Scott\u2019s Gladiator<\/em>, the work reflects on performance, mediation and identity amid cultural flux. Material motifs introduce a quietly mordant play on imitation, desire and the social meanings embedded in spectacle, while colonial residues and shifting Maltese identities generate imagery that remains both seductive and critical, and deliberately unresolved.<\/p>

Raphael Vella\u2019s Praying for a Revolution That Will Never Come<\/em> unfolds as a dual-channel installation composed of stop-motion animation, sound, and industrially compressed protest posters and banners. The work assembles scenes and fragments from a century of Maltese protests and civic demonstrations, drawing from archival footage, protest chants and footage captured by the artist himself.<\/p>

Loosely referencing Article 42 of the Constitution of Malta, the animation functions as a stuttering loop in which political desire fails to incarnate except in monumental representations of dissent that surface momentarily. Yet, resistance endures in the act of drawing itself, as thousands of drawings construct a political momentum that vanishes as soon as it forms, returning the artist\u2019s hand to the page through that very postponement.<\/p>

Malta\u2019s pavilion resonates strongly with the Biennale\u2019s overall curatorial theme, In Minor Keys, engaging with moments of catharsis, crises of authenticity and nation-founding while challenging triumphal notions of power without cynicism. Instead, it asks for reflection and empathy, and makes room for beauty and humour as necessary elements of our shared humanity.<\/p>

Together, the three artists\u2019 works represent a maturing contemporary art scene in Malta, one that has seen the emergence of a strong, experimental, multi-disciplinary cohort of artists practising in Malta and showing internationally.<\/p>

The Malta Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition \u2013 La Biennale di Venezia 2026 runs from May 9 to November 22, 2026.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Malta at the Venice Biennale 2024<\/h3>\n

Minister for the National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government Owen Bonnici launched the Malta Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale, in Italy. The pavilion was commissioned by Arts Council Malta, where Malta will be represented by solo artist Matthew Attard and his innovative project, I Will Follow the Ship<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Attard\u2019s exhibition converges historical ship graffiti found across the islands of Malta with digital technology as a contemporary drawing practice. The co-curators of I Will Follow the Ship <\/em>are Elyse Tonna and Sara Dolfi Agostini. Maria Galea and Galleria Michela Rizzo are overseeing the project\u2019s management, Vincenzo Casali is the consulting architect, and Joey Borg is handling the project\u2019s programming and software development.<\/p>\n

In a speech he gave in Venice on the occasion, Minister Bonnici explained how La Biennale di Venezia is one of the most prestigious international institutions in the cultural sector for the presentation and promotion of contemporary art. He said that after a long absence of 17 years, the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale shall mark Arts Council Malta\u2019s fourth participation with its own National Pavilion since 2017, when Malta re-entered the Biennale with \u201cHomo Melitensis: An incomplete history in 19 chapters\u201d exhibition. Arts Council Malta also commissioned Malta\u2019s participation in the 2019 and 2022 editions, with \u201cMaleth \/ Haven \/ Port\u2014Heterotopias of Evocation\u201d and \u201cDiplomazija Astuta\u201d respectively.<\/p>\n

Minister Bonnici thanked Arts Council Malta, under the leadership of Executive Chair Albert Marshall, and stated that the Council is doing crucial work in the promotion of local artists, both locally and abroad.<\/p>\n

Arts Council Malta\u2019s Executive Chair Albert Marshall stated that Matthew Attard is the perfect example of a young artist from a small country who has managed to overcome these geographic limits. He said that his perseverance and determination to succeed, together with his passion for the arts, and his extraordinary talent, have led him to Venice.<\/p>\n

Mr Marshall explained that the Biennale\u2019s theme, \u2018Foreigners Everywhere\u2019, has resonances with Malta\u2019s Pavilion, where our own departure point and \u201cnucleo storico\u201d (the name given to a special selection of the International Exhibition of Art) are humble and anonymous ship graffiti, which, despite being found across Malta and being part of our rich cultural heritage, are also found in many countries and locations within the Mediterranean Basin. Mr Marshall augured that the Maltese team at the Biennale would have a resounding success. He also thanked Mary Ann Cauchi, Director of Funds and Strategy at Arts Council Malta, Dr Romina Delia, the Internationalisation Executive project leading the Malta Pavilion at the Venice Biennale on behalf of at Arts Council Malta, as well as the other members of the International team at ACM, Dr Frank Psaila (communications) and Celine Portelli (support coordinator).<\/p>\n

Artist Matthew Attard during the launch stated that it is a great honour and responsibility to be entrusted with the first solo Malta Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia. His long-held interest in the act of painting has allowed him to explore the intersection of historical, etched ship graffiti, contemporary painting, and digital technology. By examining historical imagination through eye movement data acquired via apparatus which follows and uses the human eye as a painting tool, Attard prompts reflections about authorship and the contemporary dependence on digital technology, while at the same time reflecting on our limitless faith in the latter. <\/p>\n

Co-curator, Elyse Tonna \u2013 the youngest and first Maltese female curator to form part of the youngest team to present a Maltese pavilion at the Venice Biennale \u2013 described how in I WILL FOLLOW THE SHIP, the imagery of the ship emerges as a timeless symbol of hope and possibility, transcending the constraints of time and uncertainty. Whether carved into weathered chapel walls or digitally rendered, this symbol resonates in today\u2019s age of technological progress.<\/p>\n

Co-curator, Sara Dolfi Agostini explained how Matthew Attard\u2019s work challenges notions of authorship, agency and co-habitation, bringing into the Biennale the powerful lingua franca of the maritime community. It is a lingua franca made of residual images which belong to Malta, to Venice and to everybody – a means of communication across borders and cultures for the uncharted waters of the information society and its wider ecology.<\/p>\n

Established in 1895, La Biennale di Venezia is a platform for exhibiting the works of international artists and is recognised as one of the most prestigious international cultural institutions for the preservation and the promotion of contemporary art.<\/p>\n

The Malta Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia will be open for the public between 20th<\/sup> April and 24th<\/sup> November 2024.<\/p>


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Malta is once again present at La Biennale di Venezia in 2026, with a pavilion titled No Need to Sparkle: Experiments in Love and Revolution showcased in the Arsenale. Commissioned by Arts Council Malta, the pavilion sees Adrian MM Abela, Charlie Cauchi and Raphael Vella represent Malta under the curatorship of Margerita Pul\u00e8, with architectural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":11,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3913","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3913"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16262,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3913\/revisions\/16262"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artscouncilmalta.gov.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}