Splitting the Other

Nalini Malani
20th March to 6th June
Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne 

Nalini Malani is one of the prominent contemporary artists from India. She lives and works in Mumbai. Since1970s, Malani has displayed her ardently feminine attitude in her works, in a country torn between the effects of colonialism and the idealism of a ThirdWorld social democracy, as well as being captured by the political and economic alterations brought about by rapid globalisation. She uses figures from mythology, fairy tales and the religions of sundry cultures, reflecting on war, traditional fervor, the effects of capitalism and the ruin of the environment. Malani depicts the female position in scenes past and future. In the early 1990s,she was one of the first artists in India to move away from painting by making transient wall drawings, theatrical works, video and shadow plays. The exhibition in Lausanne is Malani's largest European retrospective to date and covers works of her from 1992 till 2009.