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, Mumbai. For five decades, Malani has in her art addressed cultural, social and political issues in the Indian Subcontinent, including the conflict between India and Pakistan, the oppression of and violence against women, the struggle for authentic democracy and other perversions of progress. 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.

 

With a celebrated and growing international presence, Malani has participated in innumerable solo and group exhibitions around the world, more recently including the National Gallery, London (2023); M+, Hong Kong (2021–22); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020–21); 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); Aicon Gallery, London (2011);  and the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011), to name just a few. The Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, presented Malani’s first retrospective in Italy and in France in 2017–18, and her first retrospective in India was held by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, in 2014. She has also participated extensively in biennales, including the Venice Biennale, dOCUMENTA, Bienal de São Paulo, the Istanbul Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, Sharjah Biennial, Shanghai Biennale, Prospect New Orleans, Kochi–Muziris Biennale and Taipei Biennial, among others.

 

Her work is included in the collections of several important international institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Asia Society Museum, New York; The Burger Collection, Hong Kong; Hauser and Wirth, London; National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and New Delhi; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai; British Museum, London; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan; Kawaguchi Museum, Saitama; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Wilfredo Lam Center, Havana; and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA.

 

She was awarded the prestigious Joan Miró prize in 2019, granted by the Fundació Joan Miró and the Obra Social “la Caixa”. Malani received a grant from the French government to study in Paris as early as 1970, and more recently an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2019; the Asian Art Game Changers Award in 2016; the St Moritz Art Masters Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014; and the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize in 2013.

 

The artist lives and works between Bombay and Amsterdam.