Nalini Malani

Known for lyrical figurative paintings and animations, Nalini Malani has explored the effect of hard-line ideologies and the resilient people of India and Pakistan for nearly 50 years. Malani was born just a year before the independence and partition of India and Pakistan, an event which sparked riots that killed thousands of Hindus and Muslims, included the systematic abduction and rape of tens of thousands of women by nationalists on both sides, and persists in the heavily armored and contested Kashmir border. All of this has been explored in Malani’s art, which she calls a “condemnation of cynical nationalism that exploits the beliefs of the masses.” Much of her work uses realistic depictions of everyday Indians and adaptations of traditional morality plays. Malani also draws from literature as in her 1999 video installation, Hamletmachine, an adaptation of German playwright and director Heiner Müller's 1977 play of the same name which addressed the division of East and West Germany. Likewise, in her 2002 installation Stains, red spots, like those hallucinated by Lady Macbeth, serve as reminders of India’s violent past, which stand as symbols of guilt but also of human contact and the possibility of redemption.

Malani has been widely praised by leading critics including Robert Storr, Roberta Smith, Thomas McEvilley, and others. She has shown at the New Museum, the 51st Venice Biennale, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, among others. Her work is held in public collections at the Museum of Modern Art, Asia Society, the Stedelijk Museum, and Tate London.