Kane Calì

Kane Calì (b. 1983 in Malta, lives and works in Valletta) is a sculptor and experimentalist working at the intersection of glass and code. He is known for cast crystal and concrete works that emerge from digital data – 3D scanning, 3D printing, lost-wax casting – condensing two centuries of technological history into a single object.

Calì treats data like pigment: a dilutable raw material to be shaped like paint on a palette – except that his palette consists of scanners, software and a glass furnace. Trained at the Royal College of Art in London (MA Ceramics & Glass) after a detour through 3D animation, he returned to Malta following nine years in the UK – and into a family history: he is the great-great-grandson of Giuseppe Calì, the painter whose works shape the churches of the island. The tension between this inheritance and his digital present is the keynote of his work.

His central question is as old as sculpture and as current as the newsfeed: What remains of the human being once translated into data – and what do we regain when that data becomes material again? Human_Construct (Blitz, Valletta, 2017) cast identity in the data age into concrete busts and holograms; We Started a Fire (Malta School of Art, 2024) stages the dualities of the present – the natural and the man-made, the digital and the tactile, beauty and catastrophe. International stations include Milan, London, Copenhagen and Shanghai.

B. 1983, Malta · MA Ceramics & Glass, Royal College of Art, London · BA (Hons) 3 Dimensional Design Glass, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham · Studio in Valletta · Solo exhibitions: Human_Construct, Blitz Valletta (2017) · We Started a Fire, Malta School of Art, Valletta (2024) · International incl.: Milan, London, Copenhagen, Shanghai · Techniques: cast crystal (lost-wax casting), concrete, 3D scanning/printing, ceramics, holography