The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents Beyond Borders, the first solo in Canada by Nalini Malani, a multimedia artist from India whose works evoke violence, particularly that against women, and the extent of social inequality in the world. A renowned artist whose art is at the service of her social commitment.
At 77, Nalini Malani has retained all the force of her purpose, which she has continued to express through drawings and videos for more than half a century. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) Chief Curator Mary-Dailey Desmarais went to meet her in Bombay (Mumbai), the “Gateway to India”. There she found an artist with health problems, but determined to continue her committed multimedia practice which made her known and exhibited all over the world.
Combining video, drawing, painting, animation and installation, Nalini Malani draws on literature, current affairs, history and philosophy to create works that call upon us to become aware of today’s social and political challenges, India and elsewhere.
Born in Karachi in 1946, a year before the partition of the British Indian colonial empire and the creation of Pakistan, the artist – whose family had then found refuge in Calcutta – was always politically and politically aware. human rights. She has never been afraid to express her opinions in an India where artists are often afraid of speaking too loudly, because of too often threatened media and cultural freedom.
Two of his three works exhibited at the MMFA are unpublished. This is the case of the Montreal version of City of Desires – Crossing Boundaries [City of Desires – Beyond the Borders], a performance work that she has been developing everywhere for 30 years. It is, each time, a unique mural work, created in situ, in charcoal and felt-tip pen. Normally, she is the one who draws it, but unable to move, this one was produced by the illustrators Iuliana Irimia and Cassandra Dickie, thanks to a collaboration with MURAL.
The mural evokes the beauty of the world, but also war, violence against women and our responsibility to end it. “The little girl symbolizes our ability to imagine a better world,” says Mary-Dailey Desmarais.
The work also includes a performance of its erasure which will take place at the end of the exhibition. Nalini Malani will choose how to erase the drawing and give directions to the museum. Apparently, this is an event not to be missed! In 2018, at the Center Pompidou, the work had been erased by red roses.
In the contemporary art square of the museum is projected an animation made of 88 drawings that she created with a finger on her digital tablet. Exhibited in 2021 in Málaga, Spain, Can You Hear Me? [Can you hear me?] is inspired by a horrific news story that happened in India in 2018 – and which traumatized Nalini Malani – the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in a Hindu temple by eight men. A frequent violence in India that she wanted to address by broadening the subject to the injustices suffered by women on the planet, but also to other victims of discrimination, in particular members of lower castes in India.
The 22-minute work is appreciated lying on cushions. By trying to capture the phrases of authors such as Noam Chomsky, Marcel Proust or George Orwell and bits of poetry by Adrienne Rich, combined with images of frightened faces and exhausted or manipulated characters. The projection is both relaxing and uncomfortable. The subjects covered are related to the terror that the artist feels as a citizen revolted by the news of her country and the world. We detect his discouragement, his hopes, but also his invitation to forge a better world.
The third work by Nalini Malani can be discovered at the end of the day, outside the museum. This is the projection of his new video Ballad of a Woman, on the facade of the Hornstein Pavilion. A five-minute video that tells the story of a murdered woman who is reborn to erase the physical traces of her death, ultimately sparing the murderer.
A work on forgiveness and the eternal sacrifice of women. And a strong, necessary and universal exhibition.
