Nalini Malani (*1946 inKarachi) is one of the most influential contemporary artists in India. This publication accompanies her largest European retrospective to date, and features paintings, video installations, shadow plays, and theater-oriented works from the past fifteen years.
Since the nineties, Malani has been visualizing her decidedly female position in a country that was, at first, torn between the effects of colonialism and the idealism of a Third World social democracy, and then later seized by rapid political and economic changes brought about by increasing globalization. Employing figures from the myths, fairy tales, and religions of very different cultures—Cassandra, Medea, Alice in Wonderland, and Akka, to name a few—it is with truly epic élan that the artist depicts scenes of war, orthodox fanaticism, the effects of capitalism, and the destruction of the environment.
 
Exhibition schedule: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, March 20-June 6, 2010