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Gilbert Calleja’s write-up on Anthony Caruana’s exhibition at Gallerija Libertà at the Workers’ Memorial Building in MaltaNow (Bloody temples, 7 May) was entertaining reading.
After quoting a good chunk of my essay published in the exhibition’s brochure, he confesses that it still escapes him. He solemnly objects to the “repetitive centralised composition” of the works (shame, artistically unacceptable!), and disapproves of my “excitement” at the paintings. He then proceeds to label Caruana’s approach as “pseudo-surrealistic” and finds the painter guilty of ignorance of “contemporary aesthetics”.
Artistic works are by nature open to interpretation, and I cannot quarrel with that. However, in my view, your critic’s dismissive and unsubstantiated remarks show a complete lack of empathy towards art that is more wanting than his comprehension skills, to which he admits, or his faulty spelling, of which he is probably unaware. He has utterly failed to appreciate the artist’s novel way of elaborating on a well-known theme. Instead, he apparently gets turned on from looking at the paintings, seeing a “magical strip-tease” in the images, and little else. In short, his muddled pseudo-critique is not helpful to the reader who would like to know what the paintings are about.
George Camilleri
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