Nalini Malani at the MMFA | Refuse all violence

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 inequalities in the world. A renowned artist whose art serves her social commitment.

At 77, Nalini Malani has retained all the strength of her words, which she has continued to express through drawings and videos for more than half a century. The chief curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), 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 are intended to make us 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 alert to politics and defense 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.

Unpublished works

Two of his three works exhibited at the MMFA are unpublished. This is the case with the Montreal version of City of Desires – Crossing Boundaries [Ville de désirs – Par-delà les frontières], a performative 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 will 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.

traumatic event

In the museum’s Carré d’art contemporain, an animation made of 88 drawings that she created with a finger on her digital tablet is projected. Exhibited in 2021 in Málaga, Spain, Can You Hear Me? [M’entends-tu ?] is inspired by a horrific incident that occurred in India in 2018 – and which had traumatized Nalini Malani – namely 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 deal with 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 can be enjoyed lying on cushions. By trying to capture the sentences 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 treated 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 screening 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, which ultimately spares the murderer.

A work on forgiveness and the eternal sacrifice of women. And a strong, necessary and universal exhibition.

Beyond bordersby Nalini Malani (India), at the MMFA, until August 20