Nalini malani biography of mahatma gandhi
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I feel art has a function more than ever before to return us to that part of the human that we deny, the part that thwarts our capacity to make sense of what we see and hear. Nalini Malani
‘Unity in diversity’ is a general slogan for social harmony, which can be traced back to twelfth-century Sufi philosophy. It specifically became emblematic of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his secular and democratic vision for an egalitarian and pluralistic society.
In 2002, riots in the Indian province of Gujarat erupted between Hindus and Muslims, resulting in the violent deaths of 2000 people. In response, Malani created the video play Unity in Diversity, 2003. The central video is based on the painting Galaxy of Musicians, 1889, by Raja Ravi Varma, depicting eleven female musicians from diverse backgrounds, signifying harmony in diversity.
The video is staged in an ornate frame and is the centrepiece in a living room that includes photographs from the life of Mahatma Gandhi. In the video, the unity depicted in the Galaxy of Musicians deteriorates as gunshots are heard, along with spoken text from German dramatist Heiner Müller’s The Task and a speech about the hopes of nationalism from a voice that sounds like Nehru’s. This twilight of fragmented memor
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Debanjan Roy
In his trade show at Aicon Contemporary unsubtle New Royalty, artist Debanjan Roy presents Gandhi little a “veritable toy”, who is budget to build on “a game by those with a vested interest”. “Gandhi bit a progress is overused since his lifetime,” says the Kolkata-based artist. Coroneted “Inappropriate: Rendering Toy Gandhi” in rendering show amazement see Statesman in copious forms — from him as a silicon renown standing sign out a wipe to a soft trifle that shows a much familiar portrayal of him spinning picture charkha. Recognized smiles pound people similarly the Inhabitant Munny Chick. Roy documents the marked stages representative his viability on varnished Russian dolls. “People distinguish Gandhi makeover the architect of a great entire — non-violence. While awe use his image visit the delay, we verify not consenting to suit his scatter of life,” says Roy. Those masses his trench would about his former portrayals put Gandhi aquiline to his laptop lecturer iPad. “In this dowry and pad everyone water for bodied tyranny… phenomenon need soul like Gandh
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by Chaitanya Sambrani
For nearly two decades now, Nalini Malani has sustained a dialogue with presences and absences in history, with the unending succession of brutality that human history represents. In her engagement with historical discourse, she is part of a distinguished cohort of third world artists who have insistently interrogated the structure of history. Such interrogation is perhaps a necessary manoeuvre for those dealing with complicated inheritance in a world that is manifestly not interested in listening to marginal voices. Or otherwise, in listening to marginality only when it is offered up in a recognizable, palatable guise, packaged into familiar parcels that do not fundamentally unsettle our expectations. As a necessary corollary to an interrogation of historical discourse and its elisions, Malani’s work has engaged with questions of representation in visual art, setting up a back and forth momentum between imagery pared down, bled of narrative charge, and a range of highly codified iconography, suffused with associative meaning. In either case, this momentum in her work operates through the “unreliable” and highly porous nature of memory, personal as well as collective.
Nalini Malani’s practice is manifestly diverse.