A “Biennale” is typically, an arts festival held every two years. In reality it is an arts market where investors and art collectors visit a Biennale in search for great art to buy. The word “Biennale” originates from the title “La Biennale di Venezia” which was organised for the first time in 1895.
The Maltese government has spent a very significant sum of money to invite a host of foreign artists to exhibit their work in Malta, along with the typical and usual Maltese artists who get called on a regular basis by the government to participate in its vanity projects: among them is the none other genius provocateur master artist Austin Camilleri. There are many problems with this new government-funded vanity venture. The problems with this vanity venture are also similar to the other government funded vanity venture, MICAS, which is run by a previous health and beauty products saleswoman, Phyllis Muscat.
The Biennale like MICAS has been concocted by government officials along with artists who are only interested in exhibiting themselves as would any other artist be. Basically, what these people plan and execute is not in the public interest but serves only as a platform for government officials like Mario Cutajar to participate in a fancy artistic event, who would never be invited as private citizens, and for a small group of Maltese artists to exhibit their work. Now, artists will, of course, take every opportunity they are offered, so it is up to the government officials to ensure they are doing things right, not the artists.
These projects primarily serve to gratify government officials. Mario Cutajar and Phyllis Muscat would never ever be invited by the private industry to organise anything remotely artistic or to sit on a museum board, so they make use of public funds to participate in the arts industry to satisfy their vanity and narcissistic desires. Once Mario Cutajar and Phyllis Muscat lose their government jobs, the nearest they would ever get to an artistic piece or a museum would be when they line up in queue with ordinary visitors. No one in the private industry is ever going to hire them. So these ba?u?li will splash away public funds so as to build around them a lavish life they can never have in their private capacity. It’s really gross.
Now, things would be done very differently if our culture entities would have been run by competent people who actually understand the business and commerce of the arts and culture industries, but the government has made sure to alienate many of these people in the first place, so we are stuck with the likes of Mario Cutajar and Phyllis Muscat.
First and foremost, an arts industry needs investors and collectors to thrive and in Malta we have very little of these. We have a lot of rich people, a lot of access to many rich people and funds (we are a tax haven), and yet, we are unable to foster the culture of buying art. This is also a chicken and egg problem, because you also need good artists and good art in order to create a sustainable and healthy market, and we don’t have a lot of good artists.
So, it is pathetic and ridiculous that a Maltese government funded museum would purchase a work of art by a great Maltese artist for say ย5,000 only to then splash away millions of Euros for a vanity event so that Mario Cutajar can give a speech that no one will listen to. This is outright stupidity and corruption.
So, before we have a vanity museum, and a vanity arts festival, we need arts buyers. Buyers won’t come just because you organise an arts festival and a museum. Buyers come when they are convinced that the product that they will purchase will keep its value and appreciate in time. How do you create this enticement for buying art? Buyers are only enticed with price action, and in the Maltese arts scene, there is very little to none price action, so the government has to create it by bidding itself.
There is no other way and hopefully someone in the culture bureaucracy will come to realise this. If the bids for Maltese art are miserable, the government has to bid itself and even engineer in a surgical manner the creation of other bidders who would bid art prices higher. There is no other way. Everything else is just vanity to appease the narcissistic desires of the likes of Mario Cutajar and Phyllis Muscat.
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