Date/Time
17/11/2016
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Location
Italian Cultural Institute
Piazza S. Giorgio, VLT 1190
Valletta
Malta
What makes Maltese modern art modern? Can the art of a small, peripheral nation with a strong religious cultural identity even be described as modern?
Malta’s twentieth-century art is concerned with the traditional past but also with Western cosmopolitan art philosophies. Many artists tasked to make sense of the old and the new in their search for modern forms of expressions. Scholars and art historians also struggled to assess the country’s changing historical consciousness and its representation in the visual arts. The idea of Maltese insularity was always a point of contention that many either conformed to, antagonised, or rearticulated.
In this talk, organised by Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute, Nikki Petroni will be addressing the development and reception of Maltese twentieth-century art in relation to the politics of the country’s simultaneously provincial and cosmopolitan identity. The discussion will centre on dialectically debating the assumption of Maltese cultural backwardness through the analysis of particular artworks and their art historical interpretation.
Entrance costs €5.
Tickets can be bought from https://
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Nikki Petroni is a PhD candidate at the University of Malta researching Maltese modern and contemporary art under the supervision of Dr. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci. Her thesis title is ‘The dialectics of tradition and modernity: an analysis of the relationship between ecclesiastical hegemony and the making of Maltese modern art’.
Nikki read for an undergraduate degree in History of Art at the University of Malta, graduating with First Class Honours. She then proceeded to complete a master’s degree at University College London (UCL) in 2013.
She has been organising conferences and exhibitions on Maltese modern art as part of the Department of History of Art’s activities for the past couple of years. She is an arts and culture columnist for the Malta Independent on Sunday and is co-curator of the Mdina Cathedral Contemporary Art Biennale 2015-16. Nikki is also an editor of Patron Magazine.