t Stones
y 1999
m in situ and quarried upper coralline limestone, 22crt gold leaf
d varied
A site-responsive intervention with a series of installations across the Maltese Archipelago. Taking as reference the Duchampian ready made and flipping the concept diametrically opposite, the artist marks north, south, east and west points of the whole national territory to delineate its land, labelling it as 'museum'. The gilding survives for 4/5years, just the period nature takes to reclaim the interventions.
In its formal crafting this work also heralds at centuries of the familiar process of gilding stone patterns in the local churches in gold leaf. But the artist’s sensibility towards the materials he chooses to work with, points out perhaps unassumingly, at a shift that occurs in and through this work. The moment he singles out the chosen rocks, unaltered, they had become stones. The intervention on the stone itself transcends the sculptural object in its reflective light. Call this art -and instantaneously, the work itself had started reverting to rock.
installation view, October 1999, City Gate, Valletta.
east.north.south - dingli cliffs . xwejni bay . delimara
dingli. view
xwejni view