The artistic visual and intuitive creative process as a theatrical act (20th and 21st c. Malta)

Abstract

Through a theoretical and analytical engagement in treating the creative process of art as a theatrical act, this dissertation seeks to analyse the means by which a work of art is able to re-instigate aura into the twentieth and twenty-first century. The methodology implemented is primarily theoretical and analytical. Through numerous interviews with both artists and academicians alike, together with an analytical, critical and formalistic study of works of art, and theoretical studies of critics, scholars and academics, I therefore aim to provide a holistic understanding to my research question and area of study. Through such material collected from primary and secondary sources, I will thus utilise this to formulate a study of both an analytical and comparative nature. Moreover, a historical contextual analysis will underline the foundations for this study, and thus allow for a holistic understanding of the research topic. Due to the theoretical nature of my study, defining the terms central to the discussion is imperative. Amongst these are the theatrical act, visual art praxis, ritual, deritualisation, primordial essence, intuition, premonition and aura, amongst others. In Chapter 1, I will attempt to deal with the visual art praxis as a theatrical act, which is a ritual returning to primordial roots. Through a series of discussions, namely concerning presence through ritual, the finalisability and unfinalisability of the theatrical act, together with the Gesamtkunstwerk and Verfremdungseffekt, this chapter will discuss the ritual as a fundamental component in analysing the creative process as a theatrical act. Following this, Chapter 2 will then move towards a deeper study into the relationship between the various forms of visual art, such as painting, sculpture, mixed-media, installation and performance art, in relation to the terms central to my study. Moreover, this chapter will further analyse a contextual discussion relating to the loss of language and aura as a result of the mechanical age of reproduction and consumerism. The return to the primordial, which I will attempt to show, further highlights the creative process as a theatrical act. Once an understanding of the creative process as a theatrical act has been underlined, Chapter 3 will clarify intuition as an integral part to the discussion. In order to further enhance this analysis, a comparative discussion between the theatrical categories of Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938), Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940), Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), Dario Fo (1926-2016), Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) and Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999) will be considered in their relation to the artistic creative process and the relative theatrical act. The fourth and final chapter aims to encapsulate all that has been discussed, through a tangible analysis of the Maltese context. The myriad of terms central to my research thus find their manifestation in the works of ten artists, who have been chosen on the basis of their relevance towards my discussion. The aim of this dissertation is to provide the structural framework for an in-depth analysis on the creative process of art as a theatrical act. This discussion is to provide a more holistic and integral approach towards this understudied facet of the arts, which in turn deeply encourages further discussion, analysis and contradictions on the multifaceted artistic creative process as a theatrical act.