The ‘Gallerija Feniċi’ and its fostering of a new artistic sensibility

Abstract

In the first chapter, the context in which the gallery was born is given. The events leading to the necessity of contemporary art galleries, the major exhibition centres on the eve Gallerija Fenici was established, and the particular social context in Malta at the start of the 1980s are highlighted. The following chapter then deals with a brief history of the gallery, starting from its setting up and finishing with a description of all its events. I conducted this research by using exhibition catalogues and going through contemporary newspapers in search for reviews and exhibition articles. All exhibition catalogues, posters and invitation cards which I got hold of can be found in the appendices together with the comprehensive exhibition list. All newspaper articles concerning Gallerija Fenici which I found in my research are then documented in the bibliography. Fortunately enough the gallery had been given ample coverage by the contemporary media. The third chapter then consists of nine major exhibitions held at the gallery which were of great importance to the local contemporary art. Each exhibition is discussed in detail, together with the works deemed more important. The basic research for this chapter mainly consisted of exhibition catalogues, exhibition reviews and artists' interviews. At times not all works were available for viewing and thus this narrowed my selection. It was therefore impossible to bring together all the works exhibited in these nine exhibitions due to the number of works which now form part of private collections and also, in some cases, lack of documentation. However, the selection of the works discussed from these major exhibitions give a good feel of what the shows consisted of, and also sum up the exhibitions' importance. The concluding chapter then deals with the closing down of the gallery and its achievements and contributions to the local contemporary scene. One last important notification is that throughout my whole research process, interviews with the gallery directors, artists and contemporary art critics proved to be a very valuable primary source.