This is the full extent of his ignorance. I can’t believe Malta’s ‘creatives’ actually voted for him and said he ‘cares about culture’.
Muscat got the votes of the actors, singers, dancers, musicians and painters, and then insulted them with this.
The prime minister said on television that his government is looking at putting a ‘taster museum’ on the ground floor of the new parliament house, so that it will serve some practical purpose by bringing the tourists in.
A taster museum is a museum with displays telling you what you can see in Valletta’s other museums. Please tell me why anyone would want to do that, or why anyone would bother visiting it.
But that’s not the point. The point is that here we have a prime minister who is so uninformed, so crass, so deeply, deeply uneducated in the ways that matter, that he actually thinks – and says so in public – that you have to put a tacky museum on the ground floor of a world-class Renzo Piano building to get tourists to visit it.
I was AGHAST. Aghast, I can’t tell you. I felt like ringing up all those actors and singers and painters and musicians who told me that they are voting for Joseph because Joseph loves culture, and telling them ‘Did you hear that? That’s your man. How embarrassing for you, poor things.’
Tourists (and others) will visit our parliament house for itself, because Renzo Piano designed it. If Muscat sticks a museum on the ground floor, they will avoid the museum and buy tickets for a tour of the building instead. They will queue up in droves. There will need to be a ticket office like the one at St John’s Cathedral and there will also need to be on-line booking.
Some parliament houses I have queued up to visit along with crowds of hundreds: London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Budapest…no tacky museums, just the parliament house. In Berlin, if you try to book just a few days ahead you might be lucky to get tickets for a slot at 9pm. That’s the draw in itself: the actual building.
What this says about Mr and Mrs Michelle Muscat is that they travel like chavs, to shop and to say they’ve been somewhere. But even if you don’t travel, you can still find out. You should still know, and take an interest, especially if you are a prime minister, however small your island.
I cannot, really cannot, understand how nobody has asked this man which museums he has visited IN HIS LIFE – in his life, not recently – and what he understands about paintings and architecture. It’s obviously jack.
That’s what happens when your grandmother takes you to Mintoff meetings instead of museums. The ignorance is just incredible. But as I said, no excuse. He is his own man and should have done all this for himself.
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Daphne, there are two kinds of creatives in Malta right now. And I don’t use the inverted commas because I do actually respect them and their contribution to the arts and culture.
[Daphne – I used inverted commas not to be sarcastic but because it’s a word I don’t like. It was a reference to the word, not the people. After all, I am technically part of the same mix through my work.]
The first kind are embarrassed/incredulous (delete as applicable, or perhaps a mix of both) that they helped vote in this truckload of cultural crassness, the equivalent of appointing Eileen Montesin to curate the Louvre.
They can’t publicly ridicule Muscat/Herrera so soon because they would look like fools so they’re hoping for a miracle. (A staunch Labourite recently commented on Facebook that Labour should “co-opt” Demarco as Labour Minister for Culture.)
The second kind are hoping for a lift on the gravy-train so are pretending all this isn’t happening and putting on courageous smily faces at receptions.
Then there are the three max four creatives who actually voted PN.
Don’t the majority (around 85%+) of the Maltese judge the countries they visit by the quality and the opportunities for shopping? I rarely hear anyone praise a country for anything else.
Orlando USA is the exception.
About the Parliament buildings, Joseph Muscat is clearly in a cul de sac. He got himself in there before the elections, when he called the Piano project a “kapricc” in his build up of the propaganda campaign against Lawrence Gonzi and Austin Gatt.
He wanted to take a free ride on the sentiment of many voters who had grown dissatisfied with the PN in government precisely because of meritocracy – that is, because those voters were expecting some position which they did not merit and consequently did not get – and who therefore were happy to denigrate any significant step taken by that government.
So the PM is now desperately trying to find ways to get out of the dark alley he got himself into without it becoming very evident that he is doing another U-turn.
Judging by his stand about the EU, something tells me that he needs another 5 years to discover, with his evolved sense of hindsight, that the Piano project was a masterpiece after all.
Actors and artists? By any chance are you referring to Testa , Mangion and Zammit Tabona?
Interesting how the agenda seems to be exclusively his.
Herrera’s not really interested, Evarist’s too busy washing school curtains and Kenneth’s lost somewhere in the car park.
V18, yeah right.
I think the main problem with Muscat et al is their brainwashing…nothing else.
After the recent cabinet reshuffle in which the Minister of National Security, the Police, the Army and Broadcasting lost the Justice (thank God there was no coupe d’etat in the process, considering the considerable power that Ministry holds together), Joseph Muscat has a golden opportunity on his hand.
He now has the Justice Ministry under his wings.
Shouldn’t he be teasing Hose Herrera with it along the lines of “See what I have? I can give it to you, if you give me the head of Jason 2018 on a plate.”
Weren’t they complaining that the building is too small to house the parliament?
How are they going to fit a museum.
My thoughts.
These first 100 days have been one farce after another. I am not laughing though.
Why not?
Because actually the situation is tragicomic, and as for Malta and all the achievements that the PN has attained over all these years, all this is a full blown tragedy.
Kif ikantaw fil -”Brindisi” tat-Traviata;
”Libiamo, nei lieti calici…..,,,,,’
A Renzo Piano project is an everlasting investment in Malta.
In all countries where there is such a project millions of tourists visit it leaving considerable profits.
And it’s not only about tourists, either. What about the people who live here?
Why does the PL try to belittle this project – it must be insecurity.
So, a museum dedicated to the Great Dom, as had been suggested, might come to fruition.
Taster museum about what, who or which items. Are these people living in 2013? Visitors aren’t interested in Museums housing collections of objects anymore, unless they are the obvious (British Museum, Louvre, Prado, metropolitan etc), which they visit because of the quality and quantity of it. Or because they go by the concept of been there done that travel syndrome.
Visitors today want to see the genuine product that is linked to its history, site context and which reflects society its function and its use.
Hence visiting the Renzo Piano parliament house is about Renzo Piano and modern architectural concepts, nothing more nor less. Visiting Valletta is about the Knights of St. John and the design of a baroque city. Visiting Hagar Qim is about prehistory.
Visiting St. John’s Co cathedral is about State and Church within the context of the knights political situation in the Med. Visiting fortifications is about military history, conquest domination survival of society.
All the so called museums housing collections are outdated as they don’t give the pure context and send the right message to the audience. Audiences today aren’t daft anymore – they either see Caravaggio at St. John’s in its pure context or they aren’t interested in it at all.
Pulling collections out of pure contexts is just tantamount to seeing a bunch of items in your grandma’s showcase in her sitting room. These collections nowadays can only survive in the context of a collector’s home (damn, it has to be a good collection and the collector needs to be an important person) or else they have to be found in a stately home, historic house or a palace.
Its about value and authenticity. Gone are the days of the Victorian showcase, or enlightenment exhibition.
Whoever came up with this crass idea has no concept of the value of museums, sites and collections in today’s society.
The taster museum they are talking about could be a bunch of images on the net or a promo, very much what Joseph Muscat just performed for his 100 days in power.
Oh God if these are the ideas that we are going to see lined up for V18, we are going to be most derided by our cultural colleagues.
Well, he is certainly not getting MY support, for what it’s worth.
To use cheap gimmicks in order to draw crowds to a work of art is a direct insult towards the artist himself. But what would an uncultured idiot know about that.
Not all works of art by famous artists are wonderful to behold. Some are just famous just because they were made by a well known artist.
The Parliament building was, is and will remain a horrible structure that ruins one’s view when entering a majestic city such as Valletta.
If the PN wanted to do something beautiful to Valletta, they should have instead removed the equally ugly flats on the left hand side.
Clearly you are an expert on architecture! A country of uncultured peasants led by uncultured fools.
In a few years’ time, Muscat – if he is still there – will be boasting about the ‘state of the art’ Piano project, in hindsight of course.
Who started this “majestic Valletta” nonsense? It looks pretty, certainly, from some angles, but majestic?
Uncultured ‘power’ is green with envy..thus it either destroys or disfigures the notable achievements of others!