Listening to the Shades

In 2013, the Museum had exhibited the work Listening to the Shades, in honour of Malani having received the prestigious Fukuoka Prize for Art and Culture 2013. It showcased 42 facsimile prints on archival paper, that the artist gifted the Museum.

The dominant element in this series of paintings is the human brain. This organ appears in a conundrum of scenes, where it changes into boxing gloves, a rehearsal chamber acts as a space for thought or flying objects, high in the sky with two fighter jets. In the key image of the storyboard, the lower part of a spinal column comes out of Cassandra’s mouth, while jets battle and explode in her head. Although apocalyptic in approach, Malani ends the story in a more optimistic tone where she finds space for, as she calls it, gendered thought.

The work was featured as part of the exhibition 'The Witness' by Nalini Malani. The exhibition was curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta and Johan Pijnappel. In this exhibition, Nalini Malani explored concepts and concerns that have preoccupied her for decades - notions of oppression and dominance, of freedom and justice.