Nalini Malani: The First Indian To Win The Prestigious Joan Miro Award

Indian contemporary artist Nalini Malani won the prestigious Joan Miro Prize for 2019, this Friday. The award was announced by Fundació Joan Miró and is named after the Spanish Painter and Sculptor Joan Miro. He was one of the most influential artists of the 20^th century. This was the seventh edition of the international Joan Miro award that comes with a cash prize of 70,000 Euro and is considered as one of the most prestigious awards in the world.

“The jury acknowledged her longstanding commitment to the silenced and the dispossessed all over the world, most particularly women, through a complex artistic quest based on immersive installations and a personal iconography where profound knowledge of ancient mythologies converges with a bold condemnation of contemporary injustices,” the Joan Miro Foundation said.

The dimensions of her work include ephemeral wall drawing, installation, shadow pay, multi-projection works, and theatre. As far as her progressive work is concerned, the characteristics include moving towards the modern media, international collaboration and giving a surrounding surface to the pictorial surface.

Her work is based on her experience as a refugee during partition

Nalini Malani was born in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 1946. Her work is influenced by her experience as a refugee during the India-Pakistan partition. She also places cherished cultural stereotypes under pressure. The dimensions of her work include ephemeral wall drawing, installation, shadow pay, multi-projection works, and theatre. As far as her progressive work is concerned, the characteristics include moving towards the modern media, international collaboration and giving a surrounding surface to the pictorial surface.

First Indian to win the prestigious award

As Malini believes in suppressing the cultural stereotypes, her work also reflects the same. Malani’s work gave a voice to the “silent and dispossessed all over the world, particularly women”. She also became the first Indian to win this award. She grew up in Kolkata and Mumbai, where her family took up residence after the partition. She currently lives in Mumbai. The 73-year-old Malini is a pioneer in film, photography, installation, video art and performance.

As a refugee, her personal background instilled in her a firm socio-political commitment that is focused on human existence and situation of women.

As a refugee, her personal background instilled in her a firm socio-political commitment that is focused on human existence and situation of women. Her work represents the battled world and she manages to allure people through the immersive and complex installations that reflect her vision in life. As she received the award alongside the director of the Joan Miro foundation, it was an emotional moment for her. She reminisced as to how she met Miro in 1970s, the time when she was studying in Paris. As she says, since then, she has considered him a man of incredible generosity with respect to future generations, and as someone with a fascinating body of work that she has been influenced by and from whom she had learned a lot.

Malani will now be exhibiting her work for the first time in Spain in 2020, at the Miro Foundation, a place that according to her fascinates her completely. Explaining her vision she said, “Without art, there is boredom, and with boredom, violence”. The jury of the Joan Miro prize included Iwona Blazwick, Alfred Pacquement, Magnus af Petersens, Joao Ribas, Nimfa Bisbe and Marko Daniel awarded Malani the prize by unanimity. In India, she says, not many people visit galleries or museums. This, she says, made her resort to producing plays, which made her popular.

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