Horizons has recently published volumes 2 and 3 in the Maltese modern art series written by Prof. Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci

The first, Metal and Silence: The quest for daringness and authen

ticity in the arts covers the introduction of metal as an artistic material. Previously thought of as arte da manicomio for its daring attempt to introduce radical new forms and the introduction of metal as an artistic material, Maltese modern art has endured years of reticence and historical concealment precisely because it presents a disquieting situation to confront.

In this book, Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci innovatively juxtaposes modern art’s development in Malta with the concept of silence. The author enters into a number of vital, albeit oxymoronic, debates on the history of modern art in Malta and its notable evolutionary qualitative leaps in the post war decades. The discussion enters into unprecedented spheres of knowledge to further entrench the study of Maltese art in the complex of local and international contexts.

The second in the Maltese modern art series, Metal and Silence: The quest for daringness and authenticity in the arts continues to pursue the revised methodological approach for the

study of modern art by critically questioning the attitudes towards artistic production during the 20th century. Schembri Bonaci’s conclusions on artistic genius as separated from technical skill, on the alienation of art from human values in the contemporary era and the argument that beauty has now become a subversive act projecting an intriguing dialogue between modernity and the present.

Volume 3 is entitled The Beheading of Ignez: Katabasis, Ezra Pound and Three Maltese Artists.

In this philosophical and historical work, Schembri Bonaci continues to challenge selected art categories and juxtaposes them with the development of modern art. Here he audaciously treads into the intricate matrix of Ezra Pound’s poetic time-andconcept-leaps of historical narrative layers and imagination to read into visual worlds of three contemporary Maltese artists: Caesar Attard, Anthony Catania and Ġoxwa Borg.

Journeying down the katabasis path on the holzwege route to the realm of ideas, Schembri Bonaci’s thought re-emerges through the surfaces of diverse compositions, proposing unprecedented interpretations of artworks that have not previously been studied academically.

From the time of Malta’s Mediterranean antiquity and through medieval intrigue until the unknown of today, the author uncovers new theoretical angles for the study of Maltese art. Most notably, the author introduces Pound’s poetic structure and his definition of certain economic principles including the usura concept which, together with its relationship between art and industry, gives a radically different meaning to the status of Maltese art. Schembri Bonaci’s revisionary quest is also methodological as he exploits poetry’s potential as meaning-creator, both factual and mythic, for an art historical and philosophical thesis. Boundaries are relentlessly crossed to form alternative structures of discursive knowledge, only to bring the constellation of ideas into a tighter-knit formation of relations.