Nalini Malani Indian, b. 1946
Born in Karachi (undivided India) in 1946, Nalini Malani received a classical academic training in painting at the Sir J.J. School of Art. At the same time she had a studio at the Bhulabhai Memorial Institute (1964–67) where artists, musicians, dancers and theatre persons worked individually and as a community. She was a part of VIEW – the Vision Exchange Workshop – right from its conception in 1969, in the same city where she made experimental films and a series of camera-less photographs. In 1970 she received a grant from the French government to study in Paris.
For five decades, Malani has in her art addressed social, political and societal issues surrounding the Indian Subcontinent, including the conflict between India and Pakistan, the abuse and violence against women, and the struggle for democracy. Starting out as a painter, film-maker and photographer in 1969, Malani broke out of the classical painting frame in the late eighties to reach a wider audience, with installations, theatre, ephemeral wall drawings, erasure performances and video/shadow plays. Malani’s intense and committed art reveals her search for the profound certainties of life, of society, of experience-persisting ‘evidence’, which is encountered and felt.
Over her lifetime Malani has received various awards, including an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute (2010), the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize (2013), the St Moritz Art Masters Lifetime Achievement Award (2014), the Asian Art Game Changers Award (2016), and the Joan Miró prize (2019), among earlier recognitions.
She has participated in innumerable solo exhibitions both in India and abroad, including Max Mueller Bhavan Institute, Mumbai (2019); Arario Gallery, Shanghai (2018); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2016); the Institute of Contemporary Art Indian Ocean, Mauritius (2015); Engadinar Museum, St Moritz (2014), to name a few. She has also participated extensively in biennales and triennials, including the 12th Shanghai Biennale in 2018, the 3rd Asia Triennial Manchester in 2014, the 1st Kochi–Muziris Biennale in 2013, the 13th dOCUMENTA in 2012, among others.
The artist lives and works between Bombay and Amsterdam.
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M+ presents Nalini Malani: Vision in Motion
TimeOut 23 December 2021Internationally renowned for her reverse paintings and immersive multimedia installations, Nalini Malani is widely recognised as a pioneer of video art and experimental film. In...Read more -
M+ showcases new exhibition - Nalini Malani: Vision in Motion
The Standard 7 December 2021M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District announced the opening of Nalini Malani: Vision in Motion, an...Read more -
Works by Nalini Malani at Tate
Tate 7 December 2021 -
Walking through Nalini Malani’s works on Instagram
By Zahra Amiruddin | The Hindu 27 March 2020Behind doors that can now be witnessed virtually; the resounding voices on the streets, from the (now disbanded, owing to the COVID-19 outbreak) sit-in protest...Read more -
Art alert: Check out an exhibition of work by Nalini Malani at the Bhau Daji Lad
By Natasha Rego | The HIndustan Times 10 January 2020Art, heritage, violence and beauty come together in an exhibition of 10 works by experimental artist Nalini Malani at the city’s Bhau Daji Lad museum,...Read more -
‘The rise in the price of art doesn’t reflect its quality’
By Anushree Majumdar | The Indian Express 6 November 2019Stepping inside the gallery at Mumbai’s Max Mueller Bhavan to see Nalini Malani’s first solo in recent years, ‘Can You Hear Me?’, we are immediately...Read more -
A voice against violence
By Giridhar Khasnis | Deccan Herald 11 August 2019In 2013, Nalini Malani became the first Asian woman to receive the prestigious Arts & Culture Fukuoka Prize for her “consistent focus on such daring...Read more -
‘Uprootedness is not always negative’: Nalini Malani
By Ritika Kochar | The Hindu 28 June 2019One of our most thought-provoking contemporary artists, Nalini Malani, known for her lush, politically charged mixed-media paintings and drawings, videos, installations and theatre, was recently...Read more -
I Draw, Therefore I Am
By Chinki Sinha | india Today 21 June 2019Mumbai-based Nalini Malani has been making art for 50 years. Concerned with the dispossessed and the voiceless, her work has everything, from Manto to mythology....Read more -
Prophetess of high art
By Chinki Sinha | India Today 13 June 2019Here used to be a prophetess once. The burden of Greek mythological character Cassandra's 'gift' is her ability to see the future. She appears on...Read more -
Meet Nalini Malani, the first Indian contemporary artist to win Rs 54 lakh Joan Miro Prize
By Harun Nair | GQ India 3 June 2019Indians are breaking records in so many different fields every single day and as it turns out, we are not to be left behind in...Read more -
Mumbai-based artist Nalini Malani awarded coveted 2019 Joan Miró Prize
FirstPost 24 May 2019Indian artist Nalini Malani has been chosen the winner of the seventh edition of one of the highly coveted art awards in the world —...Read more -
Nalini Malani: A Memoirist for the Subaltern
By Radhika Iyengar | Mint 17 September 2018A few weeks before artist Nalini Malani’s retrospective exhibition, The Rebellion Of The Dead: 1969-2018—Part II, opens at Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art...Read more -
Nalini Malani: A Female Voice in Art
By Rasalyn D'Mello | Mint 20 November 2017Altogether, it was a very rich atmosphere.' This is how Nalini Malani described her experience at the Vision Exchange Workshop (VIEW), the multidisciplinary initiative run...Read more -
Orbit of fantasy: Nalini Malani’s transgressive play at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
By Uma Nair | Architectural Digest India 18 May 2017An artist who uses fictional tools and chimerical visuals to emphasise the real and the political. An Indian woman artist who has had the largest...Read more -
Nalini Malani
BY DEBRA LENNARD | Frieze 6 September 2016‘Nalini Malani: In Search of Vanished Blood’ is one half of Eva Respini’s punchy first season of in-house exhibitions as chief curator at the Institute...Read more -
A Retrospective of the Works of Nalini Malani Who Paints in Reverse
By Shanoor Seervai | The Wall Street Journal 9 October 2014When artist Nalini Malani first started walking to her studio in Lohar Chawl, a wholesale market for electronic goods in Mumbai, she averted her gaze...Read more -
Retrospective | Nalini Malani: You Can't Keep Acid in a paper bag at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art 26 September 2014“You Can’t Keep Acid in a Paper Bag” is artist Nalini Malani’s first ever retrospective showcasing in India. Conceptualised in three-parts, each chapter ran for...Read more -
Nalini Malani | The Perils of Prophecy
By Shougat Dasgupta | Mint 23 January 2014Spread over three rooms on three floors in Delhi’s Vadehra Art Gallery, Nalini Malani ’s small but provocative solo show is a meditation on themes...Read more