View of the installation Can You Hear Me? by Nalini Malani at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, 2020. Animation chamber. © Nalini Malani / Photo Filipe Braga
View of the installation Can You Hear Me? by Nalini Malani at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, 2020. Animation chamber. © Nalini Malani / Photo Filipe Braga
Nalini Malani
Over the course of her career spanning five decades, Indian artist Nalini Malani has created a unique visual language that challenges reified notions of cultural hegemony, nationhood, the body and the image. Her work deals with pressing geopolitical concerns of our historical moment, including gender inequality, civil conflict and collective memory. It is also deeply rooted in history, philosophy and mythology.
An immersive, multisensory environment
The exhibition showcases some of Malani’s most important large-scale works of the past several years and marks the first time they are being exhibited in Canada:
The installation Can You Hear Me? (2018-2020), a nine-channel animation chamber with 88 hand-drawn iPad stop-motion animations that envelops the viewer in what the artist describes as a human brain full of turmoil and ideas.
A new in situ iteration of the artist’s ongoing wall drawing/erasure performance series City of Desires (1992 – present), which embodies the fragility and ephemerality of the images that shape our experience of the world.
Nalini Malani, City of Desires – Global Parasites, Castello di Rivoli, 1992-2018. Wall drawing/erasure performance; ephemeral wall drawing, charcoal, ink. © Nalini Malani / Photo Ranabir Das
About the artist
Recognized as the pioneer of video art in India, Nalini Malani (born in 1946) has been working in multimedia art since the 1960s. Her practice integrates animation, theatre arts, photography, reverse painting on glass, performance art, cinema and video. Winner of the 2019 Joan-Miró Prize, she has notably presented her work in 30 solo museum exhibitions worldwide, including most recently at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Whitechapel Gallery, London, M+, Hong Kong, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Nalini Malani, Castello di Rivoli, Italy, 2018. © Nalini Malani / Photo Johan Pijnappel
Credits and curatorial team
An exhibition organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. It is curated by Mary-Dailey Desmarais, Chief Curator of the MMFA.
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Nalini Malani, City of Desires – Global Parasites, Castello di Rivoli, 1992-2018. Wall drawing/erasure performance; ephemeral wall drawing, charcoal, ink. © Nalini Malani / Photo Ranabir Das
Nalini Malani, Castello di Rivoli, Italy, 2018. © Nalini Malani / Photo Johan Pijnappel
