An artist and a curator enter a bar … no, this is no joke. This is a heart warming story of how one of the most active and accessible art galleries came about. I knock on New Life Bar’s blue door on a not-so-random Thursday afternoon. It is scorching outside. Antoine Farrugia is upstairs setting up for his exhibition, set to open on the following day. I hear him on the phone inviting people over for a chat. He laughs over the phone with his curator ‘I’m running late, but it’s fine, we’ll get there. Just don’t pester me.’ He jokes, of course, I think. A couple of minutes after that, the door to one of the last surviving traditional ħwienet tat-te (tea-room-cum-bar) springs open. One flight of stairs up is Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq – an exhibition space located in the heart of Mqabba. At first glance this place does not shout ‘art venue’, but it is.
I had met Antoine before, I knew what I was in for. I knew I’d get stories and charm aplenty. But today, from in front of the bar for a change, I wanted to ask him a bit more about his connection with stone. I distinctly remember him saying that him being from Imqabba meant that he would naturally gravitate towards this medium. As it turns out, Antoine hails from a family of stonemasons and quarry owners and workers. His own father worked the quarries for some 34 years. Antoine did follow suit but lasted just under two years. It was, and to some extent still is, back breaking work in extreme conditions. Mqabba is full of stories like Antoine’s. So many families here rely on this natural resource for their livelihood. Antoine almost wells up speaking of the absolute mess and disrespect the current construction business has towards stone which our forefathers have worked so hard for.
“Mum had bought this leather-clad red encyclopedia – our google before google. I have no idea why I did, but I always gravitated towards the images of sculptures within it. I never bothered with Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, but I would sketch his David over and over. Sculptures from Ancient Greece and Rome and the Renaissance captured my imagiantion. Soon after that, my Mum realised I had an artistic streak and so she sent me to art school.”
However, life had other plans for Antoine. In love with the local feast, he would skip art school to spend time at the Mqabba fireworks factory. 13 years in, at 29, Antoine’s life would change forever after one tragic accident at the factory. One day, walking down Merchants Street in Valletta, he impulsively picked up a book about artist Antoine Camilleri from a street hawker’s stall and purchased it with the only 10 maltese liri he had on him. Antoine credits this book with sparking his love for art anew following his accident. A far cry from the classical art he grew up copying, Camilleri’s work reignited an old flame in him.
One short stint at a Hamrun based art school was followed by more experimentation on his own terms in a makeshift studio where he graduated from copying Ancient Egyptian bas-reliefs to experimenting with three dimensional creations in stone. Having trained in carpentry, he was accustomed to the tools which lent themselves well to sculpting stone. This is when another important ‘Anthony’ entered his life – artist Anton Grech was one of the first to truly recognise his talent and take him under his wing at the School of Art to bring him up to speed with the necessary academic training he was sorely lacking. At the tender age of 40, Antoine received a diploma in .. no, not stone sculpture, but in printing. Printing with stone to be more precise. Malta’s soft and buttery coloured limestone has always had a hold on Antoine’s imagination.
Għamja l-Għajn is the 55th exhibition to open at il-Kamra ta’ Fuq, Antoine’s second exhibition in this one-room gallery. This collection marks a peak in his artistic process. After having submitted his favourite material to all manner of treatments and pigments, Antoine has finally managed to capture and suspend the material in its purest form. Pushing the stone to its very limits, pushing himself to the same extent; all whilst championing any defects, impurities, sediments and pores in the stone. As we stood in the exhibition space, surrounded by empty plinths, I could only take Antoine’s word for it and promised I would return on the morrow to see for myself before heading down for a drink.
Descending the stairs, I learn that what regular visitors have come to recognise as a quaint exhibition space, started its life as a humble storage space for the bar downstairs run by Antoine’s dad ‘Gajtan’ or Gaetano Farrugia, who took hold of the place in 1971. Gajtan would open the bar everyday at the ungodly hour of 3:30am to serve piping hot teas and coffees to locals on their way out to work. Loved by all, Gajtan is still sorely missed by many six years following his passing. His children have taken over and given the place a second lease on life by keeping the bar open all days of the week.
Its third lease came in the form of Melanie Erixon, a curator with a dream of opening up a small space in her hometown to promote artists in the area. Artist friends of Antoine’s had already got into the habit of gathering at the bar on Sundays – a community was already taking shape. And then, Covid-19 struck and Antoine and Melanie recognised this to be the now-or-never opportunity that would change their trajectory as artist and curator. The room on the first floor was slowly transformed into the gallery that was begging to be born. The bar downstairs was silent for months on end. Doubts about opening a small-town gallery abound. Regardless, they started with a bang of a first exhibition of works by the late vociferous Mark Mallia.
55 exhibitions in, Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq’s colourful success story is, according to Antoine, a story almost entirely based on commitment; a passion project which artists inevitably gravitated towards because at Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq they feel seen, understood, supported and taken care of. The place already boasts of a legacy of young artists who were essentially ‘born here’ and a waiting list of artists who have also come to recognise a home away from home in this gallery-bar.
Antoine Farrugia’s exhibition ‘Għamja l-Għajn’ is on from the 8th until the 24th August – and is curated by Melanie Erixon (Art Sweven). Il-Kamra Ta’ Fuq at New Life Bar, Church Square, Mqabba, is open Mondays – Saturdays: 6am – noon, Sundays: 7am – noon. More evening hours will be announced weekly. For updates check out Il-Kamra ta’ Fuq.
