Galerie Lelong & Co.: Nalini Malani. The Human Stain

Widely considered the pioneer of video art in India, Nalini Malani (b. 1946, Karachi, India) practises drawing, painting, and the extension of those forms into projected animation, video, and film.

Her works in new media often take the form of monumental and immersive shadow play pieces that create mesmerizing layers of imagery and sound. Committed to the role of the artist as social activist, Malani focuses on creating dynamic visual stories about those who have been ignored, forgotten, or marginalized.

For Malani, myths are our human stain, our oldest stories, which come to us without authors in a snowball effect through the centuries of time, gathering whatever is pertinent to those times. The artist borrows the title of the exhibited series "The Human Stain" from Philip Roth’s 2001 novel in which the main character tries to hide his race behind the fair color of his skin, where it is advantageous to be taken as fully "white". The human stain is both a mark on the skin and the mark of experience, too messy and convoluted to be sorted out by moral high mindedness.

NALINI MALANI | THE HUMAN STAIN

23 NOVEMBER 2023–13 JANUARY 2024

GALERIE LELONG & CO. | PARIS, FRANCE

On the cover: Nalini Malani
The Human Stain, Hippolyte, Phèdre (selon Racine), 2023
Reverse painting, acrylic and email paint of Mylar, 51 x 78 cm
© Nalini Malani / Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.

Source: Show On Show