Born in Malta in 1951. Based on the island of Gozo (Malta) and since 2010 in Berlin (Germany).
Norbert Francis Attard started as a self-taught painter and graphic artist before turning to installation art in 1998. He graduated in Architecture from the University of Malta in 1977, practicing the profession as architect for twenty years until 1996. He lived in Germany in 1978/1979 working with the firm ‘Licht in Raum’, directed by Johannes Dinnebier, one of Germany’s pioneers in light design. Attard now focuses on a contemporary art practice that incorporates architecture, sculpture, photography, video and installation, to explore his major interests in places and their memories. He blurs the boundaries of these disciplines to incorporate the irreducible physicality of sites, and to explore their sedimented multiple layers of memory, treating them as a product of place, of social interaction, and as a generative process.
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Exhibited internationally: Fjerrerup I Bund & Grund, Fjellerup, Denmark, (2013); Maifesta 9 Parallel Events, Genk, Belgium (2012); Beaufort 04, De Panne, Belgium (2012); Meridian/Urban Project, Berlin, Germany (2011); Galeria Nuble, Santander, Spain (2011); OSTRALE 011, Dresden, Germany; I-Park, Connetticut, USA (2011); 5th Biennial VentoSul, Curitiba, Brazil (2009); 25th Alexandria Biennial, Egypt (2009); CUBE OPEN, Manchester, UK (2009); 2nd Bienal de Canarias, Canary Islands (2009); INHABIT 09, Brisbane, Australia (2009); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK. (2008); Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2008); INTRUDE 366, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China (2008); 3rd Echigo Tsumari Triennale, Japan, (2006); Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2005); Casoria Museum of Contemporary Art, Naples, Italy (2005); ARTIADE, Athens, Greece (2004); Macedonia Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece (2003); 8th Havana Biennale (2003); 2nd Liverpool Biennale (2002); Edinburgh International Festival, Scotland (2002); FLOATING LAND, Noosa, Australia (2001); DIASPORA, Oviedo, Spain (1998), amongst others.
Represented Malta in the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999.
He is a founding member of stART (2002) - a group of Maltese contemporary artists; a committee member of the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts (2002-2005); committee member of Piazza Teatru Rjal (2013-2020), director of GOZOcontemporary since 2001 - an art space, offering self-directed residencies to international and local artists, on the island of Gozo. Norbert Francis Attard is founder of Norbert Francis Attard Foundation (formerly META Foundation) which is the organising body of Valletta Contemporary (VC) which he established in April 2018. He is currently the artistic director of Valletta Contemporary.
Since 2002, three books have been published about his work: I See Red Everywhere (2002); Four Olympics (2004); and Between Earth and Sky (2007). His first monograph publication covering the last 25 years of his work will be published in 2024.
Nominated for the Cool Silicon Award, Dresden, Germany, 2011.