Dates 28th October – 4th December 2022
Curator: Melanie Erixon
Venue: Spazzju Kreattiv and Il-Kamra ta' Fuq
INACTION IS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Artist Statement
INACTION IS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION is an art project by Darren Tanti that examines the media mechanisms used to shape narratives about war and its impact on viewers.
The project reflects the artist’s ongoing concern with the fabrication, manipulation, and distortion of information to which audiences outside conflict zones are often exposed. Such distortions can have grave consequences, influencing public opinion on issues of humanitarian aid and military intervention based on misinformation or partial truths.
Through a series of analytical, ironic, and at times cynical works that blend factual and fictional imagery with theoretical reflection, the project seeks to provoke critical engagement from viewers.
In addition to the visual artworks, the project features contributions from experts in journalism, film, art, education, and the military, presented through a series of talks and workshops.
Curated by Melanie Erixon, the exhibition is being held across two venues: Spazju Kreattiv and Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq.
This project is a collaboration with Spazju Kreattiv and is supported by Arts Council Malta through the Project Support Scheme.
Review by Prof Gorg Mallia
Explosive, implosive, immersive, mesmerising … incredibly well designed and laid out … thought provoking to the extreme! A tour-de-force that stimulates emotions so deep it’s dizzying. I’ve just visited what I think is the best exhibition I’ve been to in years. No hyperbole this! Darren Tanti's aptly titled "Inaction is a Weapon of Mass Destruction", that launched this evening at Spazju Kreattiv is a journey into the heart of darkness.
Staged as the artist’s decrying of the falsification of information, not least in relation to war, the exhibition digs deep into Darren’s enormous repertoire of creativity and incredible artistic skills. There are huge hyperrealistic paintings … and then there are paintings that I would dare refer to as abstracts. There are installations. There are a lot of sculptures. There is one hell of a lot of angst. And … words are really failing me today … there is an overwhelming sense of dread, a feeling of insecurity, an enormous, discomforting, overwhelmingly disruptive cognitive dissonance that bounces round you with the impact of a sledgehammer.
This is Darren’s push-back against the barrage of news and information … or, should I say, misrepresentations of reality filtered through the Orwellian hoard’s newspeak algorithmic manipulation?
All the halls of the upper galleries of Spazju Kreattiv have been taken over by the exhibition. There are explosions that almost vibrate the room they’re exhibited in … warm (or maybe even HOT) colours sprayed against a deceptive blue sky. There is a rocket (North Korean?) being launched as humanity writhes in the anguish of oppression. And all are framed by the discomforting presence of black/silver/gold statuary … almost a physical presence of dread, even as stencilled hashtags lull us into social media stupor. And the sofa begs you to go sit on it … just as the headless torso welcomes you to enter the room.
What a magnificent show!
And that’s just the first room.
The corridors are lined by post-truth grayscale hyperrealistic pastiches of Palestinian fighters emulating Delacroix. And a horse surrounded by missiles and bombs. Yes … all of that. In the corridor.
Then there is the study room with interactivity on board, projections of Darren’s photo-realism, but with computers to be used by the public. And the nude, covering her eyes not to see the missiles, even as she tries to hide in a cardboard box. Which box also covers the head of the black sculpture, standing, as one folds itself over an office chair, wired to the laptops, and another lies on a bank of speakers.
The installation, made up of monitors, with gold and red skulls mounted on poles underneath, each bearing the symbol of one of the most popular social media. Blatant. Direct. But communicative to the extreme. Art as activism at its best. And the sewing room emulates the fabrication of data … a long stretch of material half sewn by a sewing machine, even as the curator of the exhibition herself, Melanie Erixon, looks on for a hyperrealistic painting … sitting on a desk, framed by green plants, even as explosions in the background create the persistent contradictions that are so apparent throughout.
A statue begs us to remove its veil (but it’s encased in a glass cage … so we can’t), and it all leads to the final hall … which is by far the most disturbing of all.
Three huge, semi-abstract (but at the same time, ironically photo-realistic) grayscale paintings of bodies laid out in a street in the Balkans are the first to draw attention, even as a mattress with a broken vacuum, a fan, a laptop, cushions … yes, a horrendous normalcy for humanity at war … up the ante with three dimensional realities. And the paintings get more and more abstract as one walks round the room … depicting abject destruction, even as moulds for weapons hang on a wall, and the stuff of dreams and fantasies (typified by a unicorn’s head) is subverted with a horn that is a weapon of war.
And the black (ink … the press), and gold (the conductor of modern technological implements), and the plaster bandages (yes, bandages) used for casting sculptures, and the clay that forms them, but has also religious connotations … all round off the incredible symbolism that underlies what I feel is an artist at the top of his form, showing how art can create disquiet and hit you where it hurts, so it can make you think.
And on Sunday, part two of this will be launched at Mqabba.
Wow.
Look … what I’ve written does not do this exhibition justice. Go see it. Immerse yourself in its aesthetic messages. Feel the homogeneity of its layout (huge kudos to Melanie Erixon for this), even as its impossible diversity speaks with one voice.
This is Darren Tanti’s scream of anguish … but it’s an intelligent, discerning scream that punches the gut and engages the mind, while, at the very same time, amazing the eyes with its virtuosity.