Norbert Francis Attard is one of the most important contemporary artists to have emerged from the island of Malta. A committed patron of the visual arts in general he is an increasing presence in the international arena of the contemporary art world. Maltese by birth, his cultural heritage is essentially European with a strong Mediterranean dimension. His home and studio are on the island of Gozo where he has created a new contemporary art space, GOZOcontemporary offering self-directed residencies to artists from home and abroad. This space and his own studio provide the setting and the facilities to produce multi-cultural work in a Maltese environment and he takes great pleasure in welcoming fellow artists and art patrons to this special place. At the time of our first meeting at St. James Cavalier (this was before the transformation of Malta’s magnificent fortress guarding the main entrance to Valletta, into a national centre for all the arts), in Jan 1999, Norbert was working on a sculptural installation entitled Larger Than Life - a special homage to the genius of Mattia Preti, an Italian Renaissance painter who, like Caravaggio, lived and worked in Malta for 40 years under the patronage of the Knights of St.John. Preti’s paintings and murals express and embellish the glories of Maltese Baroque and his extraordinary decoration of the interior of St John’s Cathedral in Valletta suited the temperament of the Maltese people admirably. Through his mixed-media installation at St. James Cavalier, and later at the 1999 Venice Biennale, Norbert recreated the spirit of Mattia Preti by celebrating this artist’s past achievements in Malta. At the same time he managed to celebrate this manifestation of the baroque as a characteristic of the Maltese people in their everyday lives to this day; as is shown in their wholehearted commitment and relationship to religious ceremonies and festivities. Norbert made a most effective and dramatic use of slide projections upon the walls and corridors of the St James Cavalier and focused the viewer’s attention on a television set, swinging like a great pendulum in the vaulted room on the top floor of the fortress. The images on the screen were of a Maltese wedding, one of the most obvious manifestations of the baroque still alive in Europe. Norbert Attard is a Renaissance man who personifies the artist as scientist. In Larger Than Life he proved himself to be a remarkable combination of architect, painter and sculptor as well as an able technician skilful in the manipulation of electronic media. The twelve remarkable installations in this book entitled “I See Red Everywhere” were created over the last year in Malta, England and Scotland. The title is most fitting because it expresses Norbert’s passionate commitment to making art relate to important issues facing Western society, overwhelmed by the forces of rampant materialism. In this way he strikes a note of compassion and concern for the human condition struggling to make sense of the world, a world where the work of a contemporary artist is aligned with that of an entertainer or tourist or the leisure industry. Norbert has placed himself like the late Joseph Beuys as a true avant gardist, deeply questioning the role of the artist in a time of overwhelming challenge. He works tirelessly, his eyes not on the horizon which defines the world of galleries and museums, but far beyond towards the ‘offing’ where in Beuys’s philosophy lie the possibilities of true ‘new beginnings’. The Apex Hotel in Edinburgh, the gardens of St Leonards in St Andrews and the Liverpool Biennial are now inextricably linked to key locations in Malta through the transformative power of art made as a blessing and a celebration.

Richard Demarco Demarco European Arts Foundation