Connecting Malta to the international art world | Edith Devaney

When Malta’s first contemporary arts museum opens its doors in October 2024, we will welcome you in a space that honours Malta’s past, present and future.

This country has long been celebrated for its rugged natural beauty, history and heritage. And now with MICAS, we are starting a new chapter – one that looks outward and connects with the international art world, and brings the very best of modern and contemporary art to these shores, but also looks within to celebrate the richness and diversity of contemporary art and practice in Malta.

Nothing could symbolise our international aspirations more than our grand opening’s exhibition from the visionary Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, who was recently commissioned to outfit the stage for Christian Dior’s 2023-2024 Paris Fashion Week show.

Vasconcelos’s exhibition will be colourful and exuberant, with a core selection of installations focusing on the ‘domestic’, presented alongside three major works which connect with the contemplative side of human existence – Tree of Life, The Garden of Eden and Valkyrie Mumbet. Like all of Vasconcelos’s works, gender and cultural politics will be in evidence, constructed with everyday non-precious materials, often associated with the domestic, to create works of truly monumental scale and significance.

With the excavated and historic walls visible and natural light flowing throughout the spaces of the restored 17th century Ospizio and San Salvatore counterguard, the presentation of Vasconcelos’s work in the new building will also be a celebration of the completion of the heritage project and its contemporary architecture.

All international artists who work with MICAS have been challenged to leverage Malta and its culture to inform their approach to the selection and placement of work in the galleries and grounds. Vasconcelos too has formed a deep engagement with Malta and its history while developing her exhibition with the MICAS exhibition staff.

For the next two years Malta Contemporary’s inaugural programme will reflect a carefully managed selection process, designed to present exhibitions of the highest quality, which develop original ideas, honour diversity and establish relationships with global artists and museums.

After Vasconcelos, our spotlight will be on homegrown talent, spanning generations and different media, yet all united by the common theme of exploring imaginary space at MICAS.

Following an internal museum fit-out across all three gallery levels, ‘Malta in Focus’ will be a curated exhibition occupying all the gallery spaces and will feature the work of leading Malta-based contemporary artists, illustrating the depth and richness of contemporary art practice in Malta with such artists as Caesar Attard, Austin Camilleri, Joyce Camilleri and Anton Grech. It will also mark the beginning of regular exhibitions within the programme that explore and showcase Malta-based art within a global context.

Milton Avery, considered one of America’s greatest 20th century colourists, has rarely been seen in Europe. Yet in Malta, a survey of Avery’s work will occupy all MICAS’s gallery spaces, together with a selected number of celebrated contemporary artists which will include the artist’s daughter March Avery, British artist Gary Hume and Swiss artist Nicolas Party, all of whom have been influenced by Avery’s compositions and unique approach to colour.

Avery navigated an independent course through American Impressionism and Abstract Expressionism, with his work increasingly moving towards harmonious colours and simplified forms, qualities that were famously a source of inspiration to the younger generation of Mark Rothko, Barnet Newman and Adolph Gottlieb.

A pillar of the MICAS programme will be to present the work of global artists who have earned recognition for their singular approach to creating art, which is why we are delighted that 2026 will bring African-American painter Reggie Burrows Hodges to develop a new exhibition specifically for the museum. Hodges’ works possesses a strong visual narrative that explores questions of identity, community and memory, marked by his singular technique of employing a black ground across his canvases and then developing the scene around his figures with painterly, loose brushwork.

The expansive campus of the Malta International Contemporary Art Space will offer many opportunities to programme the display of sculptural work across its grounds.

In addition to the landscaped sculpture garden, due to open in 2026, there is a large green space that leads from the entrance to the galleries, which is designated for the display of sculpture, where currently the work of the British sculptor Conrad Shawcross, is installed, and in the near future, the relocation of Cristina Iglesias’s Sea Cave: Entrance from Hastings Gardens.

Indeed, visitors will encounter a multifaceted campus that comprises indoor gallery spaces, outdoor sculpture gardens, restored fortifications and a café – a green belt that connects the Sa Maison gardens along a historic beltway of Floriana and Valletta, a forgotten space now revitalised in the grand national project that is MICAS.