NALINI MALANI

Level B1 will present MALANI’s new version of Wall Drawing/Erasure Performance series ‘City of Desires’. These Wall Drawing/Erasure Performances have been carried out by MALANI since 1992, and consist of mural drawings exploring themes of memory, remembrance, forgetting, shared traditions and experiences. Recently it has been presented at her solo exhibition at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada (2023). The process involves a participation of local female artists working in collaboration with MALANI through a specific ongoing mural drawing process, and for the newly executed work at ARARIO GALLERY Seoul, it will be conducted with five local Korean female artists including SIM Raejung and LEE Yejoo. By the end of the exhibition there will also be an erasure performance directed by MALANI.

Level 1 will present one of the most important recent video installation work by MALANI, titled My Reality is Different. This work was presented in the National Gallery London, UK, in 2022, when MALANI was selected and awarded the 2020 National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship with Art Fund. The first level gallery space and walls will be filled with over-lapping 9 video projections, showing 34 new i-pad animations in continuous loop with sound. The animations show famous paintings of the National Gallery London’s collection, selected by MALANI and are re-interpreted and transformed by her hand-drawn i-pad animations. MALANI’s created animation images interact and move on these famous classical paintings dynamically covering and erasing the background. The video work includes sound, a narration that consists of the female prophetess Cassandra’s story on the fall of the ancient city Troy.

Level 3 will present MALANI’s new and rare work of a set of 7 large multi-panel reverse paintings Ballad of a Woman. It will be the 4th multi-panel painting by MALANI since 7 years ago. MALANI’s first set of large multi-panel reverse paintings were shown at Venice Biennale in 2007, the second at Kiran Nadar Museum, New Delhi, India(2015) and third at Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2017). The work is inspired from the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska’s poem ‘Ballad’, from 1962, which tells the story of a woman who is murdered. A video work of the same theme will be exhibited on level 4 of the gallery space. Ballad of aWoman shows MALANI’s famous type of hand-drawn i-pad animations, with colourful bold colours and active movement. The animations show the woman’s after-life, protecting her murderer. By showing such an act MALANI addressed the issues of self-sacrifice and suffering that women have carried out in life. The story that unfolds is dark, hidden and covered by the bright drawing lines. This recent video work was first shown at the façade of The MontrealMuseum of Fine Arts, Canada this year, as a commission work for the MMFA’s Digital Canvas.