ANN DINGLI is an art and design writer with an MA in Design Criticism from the University of the Arts, London. She has worked as a freelance writer and content consultant for four years, writing remotely from London, New York and Malta since 2016. (anndingli.com)
Interview /Patronage / Cover story October - December ‘20 MALTA
ANN DINGLI
Art in Life and Death A Legacy of Patronage Ann Dingli interviews Jhonny Roldan – known artistically as JRoldan – a Londonbased visual artist who worked for over a decade with Christian Pandolfino – an art lover and patron who was killed in Malta earlier this summer.
I
t was only in the nineteenth century that the modern role of the artist as autonomous genius gained ground. Before that, artists were overwhelmingly beholden to their patrons – the relationship between creator and benefactor propelling themes in art history that would permanently shape the world’s visual heritage. Patrons wielded their social, political and religious standing through works of art, from the diorite princes of the Ancient East to the writhing gods and saints of Italy’s Renaissance. Often a symbolic percolator for illicit behaviour – money laundering, sexual mania, and the lure of murderous violence – the whispering eroticism of mythological frescoes were as much passports to the identity of their sponsors as the throbbing carnality of the great Baroque canvases. Same stories, different eras. Whether well or ill-intentioned, benefactors have always represented humanity’s obsession with the romance that art permits and promises – a pull that eclipses class or education, but that invariably demands hefty financial resource. At points throughout history, relationships between what would today be classified as ‘creatives’ and ‘clients’ were strained, soured and at times ruinously fated. Yet at others, they saw the fruition of some of the most transcendental moments in history – a meeting of mind power that resulted in the alchemy of art’s creation. In 1990s’ London, it was through social networks of likeminded individuals that a young Colombian artist met a retired doctor turned banker. Jhonny Roldan, a visual artist having rejected the formali-
ty of the Slade School of Art met Christian Pandolfino (or Bambi Pandolfino, as was his preferred art world pseudonym), who himself had cast off the trappings of a career in finance. What would follow was a relationship spanning over fifteen years. A bond in which the artist once again occupied a station of manufacture, translating grand ideas born and exchanged between him and his intellectual and financial partner into visual experiments. Twenty-five years down the line, JRoldan is still making art in London. He creates work that has been described as relating to American abstract expressionism and the gestural abstraction of post-war Europe; but which over time has increasingly inducted the visions and mythology of contemporary pop culture – seemingly a stylistic hangover from his time spent with Pandolfino. Their relationship ended over four years ago; and as with many forceful bonds, concluded with dramatic swiftness. In summer 2020, Pandalfino was murdered in his home in Sliema, Malta in a rapid and fatal break-in. “I met him through another friend,” JRoldan recounts over a botchily connected video call from his studio-home in central London. He describes his conflicted relationship with the art world and community, admitting in one fell swoop his scorn for most conceptual art and his disinclination for public relations and selling his own work. “I like the craft involved in art – I hate PR, I hate sales, I’m definitely not a good salesman. But then again, I have met some good people. One of which was Chris. I met him about 25 years ago, and he started buying my art.” >>
No.12__ Artpaper / 019
