The Art Report - Memory, Myth and Nalini Malani
The Art Report is a bimonthly series that aims to highlight a mix of up and coming artists in the beginning of their careers as well as established artists that have inspired and paved the way for our generation. Twice a month you’ll get to learn more about their lives and their work, and hopefully find some new favourite artists!
Nalini Malani is an Indian artist born in 1946. It is difficult to highlight one specific aspect of her art, precisely because she has managed to create a universe that is incredibly rich, mixing Western and Indian mythology, present and past -all laced together into installations that combine painting and video, among other mediums.
I actually first discovered Nalini Malani through her instagram (@nalinimalani), where she posts short animations drawn on her iPad. But it wasn’t until I was able to see one of her exhibitions (You don’t hear me, in the Miró Foundation in Barcelona) that I became mesmerized by her work. This particular exhibition was inspired by the greek myth of Cassandra, cursed by Apollo (after rejecting his love) to never have anyone believe her again, despite being able to predict the future. This is where the title of the exhibition comes from, and a perfect example of something Nalini Malani constantly mentions in her work -the voice of women who are constantly silenced, who are never believed, and who always have someone else speaking for them.
There is a strong political aspect in Nalini Malani’s work. In each piece of art there is an attempt to give voice to those who have not been heard, by recovering and sharing their memories. She does this mostly by reimagining mythological figures -such as Cassandra, to comment on contemporary issues. Despite the fact that we live in a world that is shaped by reason and science, mythological thinking is still very much present. Working with these characters allows Nalini Malani to encapsulate centuries and centuries of tradition, and then to give them new meaning. In her installation Mother India: Transactions in the Construction of pain (2005), the screens show images of women in a domestic environment and images of Hindu deities associated with war. Do women need to be one or the other? Or is there space for us to be both?
Nalini Malani’s work is an eternal homage to multiplicity. The multiplicity of voices, of ideas, and perspectives that she chooses to include in her pieces, and also the freedom to explore with lots of different mediums. Memory, perhaps the main subject in Malani’s art, presents itself in many different ways, and that is reflected mainly in her installations. To go inside one of them is to be submerged in a world of colors, sounds, images, that bring to life the memories of people who have often been forgotten.
If you’d like to know more about the art of Nalini Malani:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1iK-IQNFfw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uK9iRoPds8
