An exhibition by Carlos Garaicoa, Gerold Miller, Jurgen Ostarhild and Yeoul Son opens at Valletta Contemporary art gallery on May 26. The exhibition is curated by Norbert Francis Attard.
Throughout history, numbers have been known to have cultural and even magical associations. In contemporary times, numbers are fundamental to statistics and are often associated with colours in pie charts, line graphs, heat maps and other forms of data visualisation that simplify complex scientific results for communication purposes.
The numerical title of this exhibition draws inspiration from a much humbler origin: an old telephone dial with numbers and letters that ‘spells out’ the initials of the four artists participating in the exhibition.
Hence, Carlos Garaicoa becomes 24, Gerold Miller becomes 46, Jurgen Ostarhild is 50 and Yeoul Son is 97. The title replaces one form of identification (names) with another (numerical codes), but this seemingly arbitrary system of categorisation helps to bring to light visual, conceptual and other lines of convergence.
All four artists included in the exhibition push the boundaries of the aesthetic by either experimenting with media, incorporating new technologies and digital realities or addressing social, political and economic issues. By pushing the limits of the known, the artists bring new ideas, perspectives, and experiences to the forefront.
For more Sunday Circle magazine features check out this piece about the Malta Society of Arts or this interview about Malta’s first Kor Kwir.
