The Experiment with the Bird in the Air Pump, Joseph Wright of Derby (1768) and Nalini Malani (2022) (EMPIRE LINES x National Gallery, Holburne Museum)

We return to Nalini Malani’s immersive installation My Reality is Different as it iterates in London, where curator Priyesh Mistry draws out the colonial and classical connections between the contemporary artist’s animation chamber, and the permanent collections of the National Gallery.

Born in British India in 1946, the year before Partition, contemporary artist Nalini Malani has always focussed on both ‘fractures’ and continuity. From paintings to animations, her ambitious practice has always challenged conventions - none more so than her new installation, in which she ‘desecrates’ well known works of art with her iPad, drawing out overlooked details, and immersing the viewer in her own perspectives.

As My Reality is Different moves from the Holburne Museum in Bath to London, curator Priyesh Mistry explains how Malani’s ‘endless paintings’ speak to historical continuities, from the economics of slavery, to contemporary violence, and the treatment of women in ancient Greece as Cassandra and Medea. He explores the artist’s use of Instagram as a ‘democratic platform’, and how the exhibition radically changes our realities, in how and what we see in these paintings, and museums as products of imperial exchange.

Nalini Malani: My Reality is Different runs at the National Gallery in London until 11 June 2023.

For more, listen to the artist Nalini Malani on EMPIRE LINES: pod.link/1533637675/episode/74b0d8cf8b99c15ab9c2d3a97733c8ed

And read my article in gowithYamo: gowithyamo.com/blog/nalini-malani-my-reality-is-different-review

WITH: Priyesh Mistry, Associate Curator of Modern & Contemporary Projects at the National Gallery, London, and a curator of Nalini Malani: My Reality is Different.

ART: ‘The Experiment with the Bird in the Air Pump, Joseph Wright of Derby (1768) and My Reality is Different, Nalini Malani (2022)’.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

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