Yo sé quién soy—dijo Don Quijote—y sé que puedo ser…
—Miguel de Cervantes

Rosa Martínez is one of the most influential voices in contemporary curatorial practice, having contributed to shape the international art world for over four decades. Based in Barcelona, where she earned her degree in art history in 1977, Rosa Martínez has distinguished herself as a curator, writer, and art collections consultant for museums. Her visionary approach has redefined how we understand art in relation to site-specificity, politics, and cultural identity. Her remarkable career spans from her early work coordinating art and history programs at “la Caixa” Social Outreach Projects to her groundbreaking tenure directing and curating major international biennials across the globe—from Istanbul and Santa Fe to Moscow and São Paulo. Most notably, she made history in 2005, becoming (along with María de Corral, curator of the Italian Pavilion) the first female director in the 110-year history of the Venice Biennale. Rosa Martínez curated the International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, presenting Always a Little Further at the Arsenale, consolidating her perpetual drive to push beyond established boundaries.

The Malta Biennale, organized by Heritage Malta, represents a new chapter in the cultural landscape of the Mediterranean. Unlike traditional bienniales confined to conventional galleries or pavilions, this ambitious project unfolds across Malta’s extraordinary heritage sites, from prehistoric temples dating back millennia—more ancient than the pyramids of Egypt or Stonehenge—to the imposing forts of the Knights of Saint John; from the atmospheric Inquisitor’s Palace to the archipelago’s major museums, some under UNESCO patronage; and across the channel to its sister island Gozo whose fascinating Cittadella and iconic windmill will also be part of the exhibition. Following the successful model of the Venice Biennale, the Malta Biennale combines a curated international exhibition with national pavilions organized by onsite embassies and satellite events produced by diverse institutions. The second edition, opening in March 2026 under Rosa Martínez’s curation and titled Clean⎪Clear⎪Cut, promises to be a radical departure from thematic exhibitions, instead creating site-specific dialogues between contemporary art and the historical and cultural narratives embedded in the islands.

The following is a group interview conducted by SNAPshot’s Sarah S. King, George King, and David Ebony during the curator’s visit to New York City in July 2025. It is the first interview Rosa Martínez has granted in the United States regarding the Malta Bienniale. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

SNAPshot: Why is the title of the Malta Biennale called Clean⎪Clear⎪Cut?

Rosa Martínez: The three words used for the title of the 2nd edition of the Malta Biennale are three verbs. They signal the need to put a stop to the toxicity that surrounds us and to the irrelevance that alienates us, and they propose a call to action. Analyzing, discerning, and acknowledging what is useful for a deeper understanding and enjoyment of the world we live in is a must. I believe we need to be radical. We must try to put aside the mannerisms and superficial repetition of linguistic and aesthetic strategies that invade contemporary art.

SNAPshot: How will this exhibition be different from the first iteration of the Malta Biennale?

RM: The Malta Biennale has a wonderful energy powered by the illusion of beginnings. It is moved by the desire to invent a world, to create a meaningful event both locally and internationally. The general structure will be similar to the first Biennale organized by Mario Cutajar, the President of Heritage Malta, which follows the successful, yet inevitably criticized model of the Venice Biennale. Because this Biennale is organized by Heritage Malta—the governmental institution that oversees the major monuments of the archipelago, including some under the patronage of UNESCO—we will have the chance to escape from the “white cube” by using amazing historical venues such as the prehistoric temples and the Forts of the Knights of Saint John. As such, this international exhibition will be accompanied by national pavilions organized by embassies around the world. In addition, satellite events will be produced by different institutions from NGOs to private entities. Also, following in the footsteps of the Venice Biennale, prizes will be awarded to the best artists and pavilions. Instead of offering a Golden Lion award whose motif is based on the winged Lion of Saint Mark, honoring its own history, the Malta Biennale award’s motif will be a Maltese Falcon. In 1530, Emperor Charles V granted absolute sovereignty of the Maltese archipelago to the Knights of Saint John for the sole payment of a trained falcon that became part of the mythology of the islands.

Another difference might be found in the increasing professionalization of each edition and certainly in the curatorial approach. The first edition was structured in thematic chapters, which ranged from piracy to gender issues. The second edition that I am curating will not be a thematic show. Instead, the projects will be related to the narratives embodied in each one of the Heritage Malta venues. Just to give an example, at the Inquisitor’s Palace, we will exhibit artworks that will bring to light different philosophical and religious forms of wisdom that the Inquisition tried to repress throughout centuries. The venue will propose a reflection on issues of crime and punishment and on how power and ideology drive our lives. As another example, in the prehistoric temples, we will deal with cosmological matters; reproduction and care as essential traits of being human will also be addressed. At the Maritime Museum, there will be projects focussing on what is happening in international waters where the laws and regulations of nation states do not apply.

SNAPshot: Since the Malta Biennale is staged on two islands, which comes with the challenges of transportation and environmental conditions, does this limit the kind of works you are looking for? Are performances or ephemeral pieces your preference? In Malta, is there a lot of upheaval due to the fact that it’s a main channel for international shipping.

RM: The major museums of the islands are providing the artists with the opportunity to react and interact with history and heritage from a contemporary perspective. Site-specific installations and performances are welcome as they are a wonderful way to connect art with the local context, which has a lot to offer to international visitors. We will also present some magnificent art pieces that will strengthen the connection between Malta and the international art scene.

Our world is a violent place, and Malta, due to its location at the heart of the Mediterranean and its geopolitical status as a state member of the European Union, is also a scenario rife with troubles. Migration, labor, and gender issues are amongst the biggest global challenges of our times, and Malta is not an exception in that sense. So, some of those issues will certainly be addressed. In my understanding, art becomes truly significant when it transforms our way of perceiving and thinking. That entails dealing with controversial topics, not just with beauty.

SNAPshot: Due to these atmospheric constraints in many of these places, will you have to focus on sculpture or ceramics, for instance, or can you also include paintings?

RM: Painting often requires strict museum environment with HVAC [heating, ventilation, air conditioning] for their preservation. The Heritage venues we are using are magnificent buildings but do not have climate control systems, so, the inclusion of paintings will be necessarily limited because of those constraints.

SNAPshot: How many artists have you selected?

RM: The list is not yet finalized. There might be one hundred or only forty. It depends on the quality and the relevance of their proposals. As the Malta Biennale was established by Heritage Malta, two modalities of the selection process coexist. One is factored on a direct curatorial invitational basis, focusing on some artists whose work I consider to be very relevant at this moment. The second consists of an international open call launched by Heritage Malta where artists from all over the planet can apply. The Maltese government believes this democratic approach provides an opportunity to many artists that might resonate with the goals of the event. There is also the desire that the Biennale becomes a platform to support and promote Maltese artists.

The open call was launched on March 26th, and it closed on the June 30th of this year; we received 3,200 applications! Reviewing so many dossiers is very hard work and my curatorial team just finished the preselection. My many years of experience in giving shape to artistic criteria can explain the relevance of the curatorial decisions of cleaning, clearing, and cutting what are just easy stylistic mannerisms among the global languages of our time. I am looking for artists whose practice is innovative, authentic, and honest; who are aesthetically eloquent within their chosen medium; and who can articulate a critical and constructive understanding of the world.

SNAPshot: How many proposals are you obligated to select from the open call?

RM. There is no obligation in relation to the quantity. We are looking for quality. But certainly, among the 3,200 proposals we received, there will be many excellent candidates. 

SNAPshot: Are you more focused on emerging artists?

RM: I always look for la bella combinazione of emerging and established artists. I am also interested in the subtle links between contemporary art and historical creations. I love to find the secret transgenerational thread that dissolves time and connects the human soul through artistic creation. I believe we can all relate to significant ideas that can travel through diverse times and cultures.

SNAPshot: What would a truly decolonized curatorial approach look like? How many countries are you thinking about?

RM: I would like to concentrate on the energies and narratives that emerge from and focus on the Mediterranean as a specific geopolitical area. There is no need to try to represent the whole planet in one exhibition. I will certainly invite artists from the global South and offer them a platform to exhibit without being classified in the traditional Western categories of abstraction, figuration, landscape and portraiture, as we saw in the Venice Biennale in 2024. I enjoyed what Cecilia Alemani just curated for the SITE Santa Fe Biennial in New Mexico, by summoning the energies and the creativity of the region. In my SITE Santa Fe Biennial from 1999, for instance, I only invited one local artist, Charlene Teters, a Native American who produced a meaningful collective project. Twenty-six years later, Alemani has been able to dig into the amazing creativity of this specific place and present many different souls living, working, and creating in New Mexico, from the Transcendentalist painters to the survivors of the atomic investigations of the Manhattan Project.

SNAPshot: This must apply to your prescient selection of the now renowned artist Shirin Neshat’s inclusion in the SITE Santa Fe Biennial that I [Sarah] worked on with you twenty-five years ago.

RM: The biennales of the nineties were looking for this dissolution of frontiers, and including artists from different parts of the planet was essential. Shirin Neshat was absolutely relevant as she was able to articulate what identity could be and how certain understandings of identity could be imprisoned by religious and ideological structures. I also worked with her on the 5^th Istanbul Biennale that I curated in 1997. In 1998, we presented her acclaimed transcendental piece, Turbulent in the ARCO International Project Rooms together with Octavio Zaya. She received the Golden Lion award when I was a member of the International Jury of the Venice Biennale in 1999. After these intense years, she is now a world celebrated artist in demand by major museums. It is an honor for me to count her as a dear friend and to celebrate her work as a major landmark in contemporary art.

SNAPshot: What about Louise Bourgeois?

RM: Louise Bourgeois is a mother goddess that, in my view, illuminates a sense of what it is to be a woman in this world. Her work also gives hope to all the women who see their “careers” flourishing when they are “old.” She was an absolute must-have, and she has always said yes to my biennial(e) invitations including those in Istanbul and Santa Fe and was always open to the new possibilities. It was an immense joy that she had replied “yes, Rosa, yes.” Every time, “yes.”

Our collaboration reached a high point when her Arch of Hysteria (1993) was presented in the exhibition I organized to celebrate the 500th Anniversary of Teresa de Ávila in 2015. Teresa was a revolutionary nun, when entering a religious order was the only way to escape from forced marriages and to have a room to oneself. Teresa was a mystic whose ecstasies Gian Lorenzo Bernini immortalized, and a pragmatic woman that renovated the corrupted rule of the Carmelites and founded more than twenty convents. I asked for the Bourgeois loan directly from Jerry Gorovoy, her life-long assistant whose body also inspired Louise to do the piece, and he let me borrow their studio copy.

SNAPshot: What else did Jerry say?

RM: Well, we should first know what Sigmund Freud said. He stated that Santa Teresa should be considered the patron of all the Hysterical—he meant “Women,” as hysteria was an emotional disorder coined by the male scientists at the end of the 19th century, exclusively associated with women. When Louise Bourgeois chose the headless body of Jerry Gorovoy to create the Arch of Hysteria sculpture, she meant to point out that hysteria is a pathology that can affect both men and women. I connected that piece with the inverse arch of a wood sculpture of a baroque demon of the XVIth century, establishing aesthetic and ideological connections between them.

SNAPshot: Are you looking at New York artists while you’re here?

RM: I am always in a state of research, but I am not visiting studios or galleries at this time. I am giving myself the pleasure to mostly circulate within the beauty of major museums. I saw the magnificent exhibition of Hilma af Klint at MoMA and experienced different kind of ecstasies with the Cycladic collection of the Metropolitan Museum.

SNAPshot:: When are you going to release the list of artists in the Biennale?

RM: The list of selected artists in the Open Call will be released in a press conference the 23^rd of  October 2025. The final list including artists from the Open Call and specially invited artists will be released in February prior to the opening of the Biennale in March 2026. The exhibition will run concurrently with the Venice Biennale, so people traveling to Venice might like to jump over to Malta and associate the oldest biennale with one of the youngest. Venice is going to be a big challenge this year, due to the untimely death of Koyo Kouoh—its first black female curator. Her team is going to further develop her concepts and realize her ideas. I attended the press conference, and you could feel the team shared a touching spirit—so I think it’s going to be a beautiful edition.

SNAPshot: What is your approach to the Malta exhibition on a more personal level?

RM: This Biennale will be very meaningful because it is my return to the biennale format after nearly two decades curating other kinds of thematic shows for museums, such as the  one mentioned before celebrating the 500^th Anniversary of the birth of Santa Teresa titled Fear Nothing She Says: When Art Reveals Mystic Truths (2015); the one about the artists who explored the influences and heritage of Picasso in Spanish artists titled  In the Name of the Father (2018), or the most recent one Feared and Revered. Feminine Power in Art and Belief (2024–2025) where dialogues were created between major historical pieces of the British Museum and international contemporary artists.

SNAPshot: Do you connect literary sources to your themes? Do you have a writer who inspires you?

RM: Writers in plural. For example, in Venice, I was inspired by Hugo Pratt, the Venetian comic strip author who created the romantic figure of Corto Maltés, a sailor who traveled the world in search of adventure, justice, and sacred knowledge. I used the title Always a Little Further from one of his books, meaning that, both in art and life, we have to try to go beyond the established truths and try to discover and create new meanings—new ways of seeing, new forms of beauty, new ways of living together. Miguel de Cervantes is also a continuous source of inspiration. He was one of the first feminist writers. He included the story of the brave shepherd Marcela in the first volume of Don Quixote, a story that is an amazing reflection on love and feminine freedom. Marcela declares at the beginning of her story: “Yo nací libre, y para poder vivir libre escogí la soledad de los campos” (“I was born free, and to be able to be free I chose the freedom of the countryside”). 

I feel very closely connected to the sentence in Don Quixote’s statement, “Yo sé quén soy, y sé que puedo ser” (I know who I am, and I know what I can be) referring to the mighty knights of his time, declaring that his own feats could be bigger than any one of those achieved by the noblemen he mentions. In this spirit, coming from a small town named Soria in the middle of the central plateau of Spain, knowing my peripheral origins and how my life has developed, I can say I know who I am, and, as a freelance curator, I know I can realize sublime exhibitions. I believe in an utopian and honest way of curating them. I always try to combine fantasy and discipline with a feminist consciousness that drove a wide range of female writers to deconstruct the ideology of the patriarchal system such as Simone de Beauvoir, Linda Nochlin, or Silvia Federici.

SNAPshot: Are you reading the Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han?

RM: Yes, I know him. He lives in Berlin. I like him because he is intelligent and understandable—not like the old hermetic male philosophers with their big moustaches and angry faces.

SNAPshot: What is your feeling about the future of art? Are you optimistic? Do you think there are important new voices, new images?

RM: My fear is not about art as much as it is about the decay and destruction of our world. Climate change, genocides, lack of moral integrity, narcissism, and the psychopathologies of some politicians. And now with social media and artificial intelligence, anything can be copied, and it becomes harder than ever to discern reliable accounts of reality; the notion of authorship is also undergoing a significant transformation.

SNAPshot: In that respect, Byung-Chul Han calms us down about AI. He has said, don’t worry about AI because it cannot love.

RM: Wow! Beautiful!

SNAPshot: And all human endeavor is about love, essentially.

RM: I also believe love and joy are the forces that can—and will save us!

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The Malta Biennale, Clean⎪Clear⎪Cut, will be on view from March 11 to May 29, 2026.