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M+, Hong Kong. Gift of an anonymous donor, 2018, © Nalini Malani
On View
Mediatheque
Nalini Malani 納里尼．馬拉尼
City of Desires 慾望之城
1992
This video documents a hybrid installation-performance at Mumbai’s Gallery Chemould in 1992. Over the duration of the two-week exhibition, Nalini Malani made ever-changing drawings in black, blue, and reddish pigments directly on the gallery’s walls. Her figures and scenes inhabit a landscape of suffering and injustice—including homeless communities in Mumbai and a Vietnamese refugee boat—which are slowly revealed by the camera. In a reference to the nineteenth-century frescos at the Shrinathji Temple complex in Nathdwara, Rajasthan, where historic murals had recently been destroyed as part of growing Hindu fundamentalism in India, Malani’s drawings were also destroyed at the conclusion of the installation.
Born in Karachi and educated in Mumbai and Paris, Nalini Malani pioneered video art in India. Her family’s experience of displacement during the 1947 Partition of India strongly influenced her early life, and her later activism. Over her long and prolific career spanning film, installation, and painting, she has continually examined the ways political conflicts and social structures affect women and other marginalised communities.
Born in Karachi and educated in Mumbai and Paris, Nalini Malani pioneered video art in India. Her family’s experience of displacement during the 1947 Partition of India strongly influenced her early life, and her later activism. Over her long and prolific career spanning film, installation, and painting, she has continually examined the ways political conflicts and social structures affect women and other marginalised communities.
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