A total of 22 artists from Malta, Romania, Greece, Italy, France, Poland, Austria, Albania, Slovakia, Canada, America and Japan will be exhibiting at Heritage Malta’s National Museum of Fine Arts, Valletta, Malta. The exhibition, I Fought the X and the X Won is a twinning project between the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Cluj, Romania and has had positive reviews from magazines such as Flash Art Magazine the World?s leading art magazine.
The title is derived from a rock n’ roll song ?I fought the law?. I Fought the X and The X Won explores the inevitable aspects of life asking questions rather than providing answers. The artists explore a wide range of themes from struggles with time and technology to effects of the media and other globalizing and political forces, advertising campaigns and stereotypes.
In many of these works, there is no tone of accusation that opposes “wrong? viewpoints. Arguments, ideas and people are not decisively split into winners and losers. Rather, their ambivalence, their irony and their discordance make many of these works so thought-provoking. The object is not to present an image that authorises specific interpretations, ideological underpinnings or political closure, but to destabilise certainties. This tactic is not a reflection of artistic or political indecisiveness but an understanding of antagonism in which the objective is to provide partial, non-authoritarian answers that weave themselves into other partial answers. There is no totality, no definite winner and loser, no fully self-conscious identity, no possibility of democracy or art without multiple, conflicting positions. Instead, art speaks of gaps and breaks and paradoxically finds its own potential therein. This emptiness is its lifeblood.
Held in Romania from 16th April till 15th May, 2011?the exhibition in Malta will be held from 15th July till 15th August, 2011. Main sponsors include Heritage Malta, Malta Arts Fund, Bank of Valletta and Emmanuel Delicata Winemaker and Art Act Magazine.
