The Malta Independent on Sunday
To deal or not to deal with the meaning[lessness] of life
The absurd will be hitting ilKamra ta’ Fuq (more than usual), in the month of May, as we will be hosting the second solo art exhibition by Julian “Julinu” Mallia titled No Smoking during the Apocalypse, showing a collection of surrealist paintings that explore contemporary absurdist themes.
I have been following Julinu for quite some time now and I was thrilled when he accepted my rather short-notice invitation to exhibit at il-Kamra ta’ Fuq and even more thrilled when he confirmed that he would be working on more works on the same line of his debut solo show Julinu’s Radioactive Ravioli, which was held at Spazju Kreattiv in 2019.
I’d like to start with some words on the absurd. Camus defines absurdity as humanity’s relentless pursuit to comprehend and navigate a world devoid of inherent meaning or purpose. The absurd individual confronts the stark reality of life’s meaninglessness, recognising that the only way to persevere is through acting. In contrast, the ordinary person is ensnared by the illusion that life holds deeper significance, clinging to the belief in rational explanations and overarching purpose.
This notion echoes Shakespeare’s timeless wisdom in “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. Like actors on a stage, individuals must embrace the present moment without succumbing to illusions of eternity or a predetermined future.
Camus contends that art should remain devoid of any meaning and of any titles, otherwise attempting to derive significance from it would render it absurd. In this exhibition some of Mallia’s paintings have a more-or-less defined interpretation trajectory. Whereas others harbour a more vague, enigmatic reading and fall into what the artist refers to as the “poetic ambiguity” category. Au contraire to Camus, who argues that creators must be completely detached from their creations and not have/feel any personal ties with their works – and naming an artwork gives away a lot of personal attachment to it – Mallia does give titles to his works and they are quite juicy titles at that. Satirical, witty, rude, daring take your pick. Surely the titles are worth checking out.
As usual, I’ll delve into some of the artworks featured in this exhibition but I will try to refrain from finding any meaning in them, which is a more challenging task than it may seem. I will try to follow Camus’ advice to writers, to confine myself to description and not to attempt to find a rigid explanation. The hero artwork in the exhibition is inspired by Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, where the painting with the same title shows Sisyphus pushing a large “thumbs up” shaped boulder, up a mountain. The painting explores the Sisyphean, futile nature of social media validation-seeking and fuses timeless mythology with contemporary notions in a dry humour, absurdist fashion. Just for the sake of context, the story of Sisyphus from Greek Mythology recounts how he was condemned by the gods to forever push a boulder up a mountain, which then falls again as soon as he reaches the top and he has to start again, ad eternum. And I’ll come back to this later.
In Cosmic Chaos Ballet we have a ballerina in mid-flight in the sky, bouncing off towards a sunset or a sunrise, and while in her midflight, she is also on fire, and perhaps she’ll explode or disintegrate soon. In this same celestial space we see glimpses of some faraway objects, flying around in this silent and quiet tornado – a drum, a chair and a small dinosaur (that looks like a Brachiosaurus) hitching a ride on a cat’s back. However, what disturbs me the most is the presence of a microwave at the right-bottom “corner” of the painting, barely contained within the composition. Perched atop it is a hovering fried egg, an absurd addition to the cosmic scene. Adding to the enigma is the digital timer on the microwave, displaying the number “42”, which IF we were trying to find a meaning to all of these objects flying in space, it would dare us to recall Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where we are told that the answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”, following aeons of calculations, is the number “42”. Yet, in this chaotic ballet of cosmic absurdity, any attempt to derive meaning may prove as futile as deciphering the mysteries of the universe itself.
In L’Origine du Monde, a provocative tableau unfolds: a reclining female nude, clad in dark underwear, playfully tugs at her undergarment. Dominating the scene is a conspicuously large red “location” sign, its arrow pointing directly at the underwear. Interpretations vary among viewers, with some suggesting it signifies the “best location ever”.
Executed in a dark monochrome palette, all artworks adhere to a cohesive aesthetic. All except one work are rendered on round boards, lending a sense of unity,
while the recurring motif of clouded skies further ties the collection together, enveloping each piece in an ethereal atmosphere.
Such work is Ghoxx Qalbek, which I will not even dare to translate to English, where on a cloudy background we see a detailed depiction of a heart, with a juxtaposed detailed depiction of a vagina fully flaunted on it. By fusing the heart (a universal symbol of love) with a Maltese insult expressing intense hatred, the artist created a highly-charged, paradoxical artefact that simultaneously hosts two, diametrically-opposite, strong emotions. This artwork comes from an earlier body of work and so does the only artwork which is not executed in the round, titled Error 404: Azure Window Not Found, where the artist created a bizarre composition of a realistic landscape of the whereabouts of where our beloved Azure Window used to be, and a digital perception
of it, where the now missing window is depicted as a missing image file on a computer – the infamous Windows Error 404 – while we also see a person taking a photo of a photo – oblivious to the glaring absence.
In The New Normal, Mallia presents a contorted depiction of four typical Maltese balconies, arranged in a configuration reminiscent of a Rubik’s cube. Amid this architectural puzzle, a woman is glimpsed through one window, her hair wrapped in a towel, suggesting she’s just completed a shower, while she indulges in a tranquil smoke. From another window, smoke billows out, from an undisclosed source. Popularised during the Covid pandemic, the term “the new normal” implies a baseline shift and an uncomfortable departure from established norms. This painting explores this destabilising sensation
that has been amplified by a myriad of far-reaching, contemporary, consequential issues such as the current wars, climate change, inflation and so on.
The last work that I will mention is perhaps the most startling one (at least for me), where we face an impossible scene where Jesus and Tony Montana from the movie Scarface just finished having dinner, and possibly awaiting the bill. Montana decides to light a cigar, but instead of using a lighter, he’s using the flames surrounding Jesus’ sacred heart, which traditionally symbolises a furnace of ardent love. This juxtaposition of sacred and secular imagery takes us all into one big dive into the absurd.
To conclude I’ll go back to The Myth of Sisyphus and how perhaps we should ponder on this subject with the notion that if happiness is real, we must be able to find it without relying on hope, faith or anything else that goes beyond our immediate experience. And “the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy”.
And one final food for thought, since we should not try to find meaning in things, I decided to see if AI could find meaning in the exhibition title. I fed No Smoking during the Apocalypse in ChatGPT, without any further instructions, just to satisfy my curiosity in seeing what comes out of it, and it had a couple of advices to share:
“Absolutely! When the world is already in chaos during an apocalypse, it’s best not to add more trouble by smoking. Plus, in a survival situation, maintaining good health is crucial, and smoking certainly doesn’t help with that.”
The exhibition is on until 2 June at il-Kamra ta’ Fuq in Mqabba. For more information, find us on social media, and do like us as we are always pushing that ‘thumbs up’ boulder.