Nalini Malani

Sotheby's New York, 19 September 2006, lot 145

Atlanta, Georgia, Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest, March - May, 2011
The College of New Jersey, October - December 2012
New York, Rubin Museum of Art, Modernist Art from India: The Body Unbound, November 2011- April 2012

G. Kapur, When was Modernism, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 2000, illustration pl. 23, p. 25
R. Brown, Goddess, Lion, Peasant, Priest, Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, 2010, illustration p. 109 - 111

There is minor wear and pigment loss along the edges, possibly inherent. Very minute craquelere in the upper right corner is visible only upon close inspection. This work is in excellent condition, as viewed. The yellow ochre of the female figure on the far right and the ground on the far left appear more saturated in the print catalog.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Nalini Malani is a leading senior female artist who has been internationally celebrated for her large-scale spatial art combining installation and painting. Born in Karachi (part of undivided India) in 1946, she came to India as a refugee of the catastrophic Partition, an experience that deeply informs her art practice.
An artist who has consistently expanded her oeuvre over fifty years, Malani’s practice is strikingly diverse. Her works have shifted from film, camera-less photography in the late sixties to painting on canvas to walls, glass, artist books, theatre and video shadow plays. Her early paintings powerfully portray violated women, which soon led her to explore conceptions of male and female roles within the joint family set up, prevalent in Indian society. In the 1980s, her work became increasingly narrative as it began to focus on the city of her residence, Bombay (present-day Mumbai), and mostly the area where her studio was located – in a busy commercial space called Lohar Chawl. The routine ordinary lives of people here with their dreams, hopes, and the daily drudge of living became the subject of many of these paintings, of which Love, Deception and Intrigue is a prime example.
The monumental painting presents several vignettes. The main protagonists are the man and woman in the upper left quadrant, who seem to be having a strained interaction. While their arms mirror one another and she looks longingly at him, he looks away, shaving into a mirror. A young androgynous male figure in background looks back towards the scenes in the immediate foreground, suggesting they are memories. Malani explains, “At the time of this work, I was using cinematic devices and a continuous narrative which came from my early films of 1969-1976 and later the period of Place for People (a landmark exhibition from 1981 held in Delhi and Mumbai with a focus on narrative painting). I wanted to create a narrative the way a filmmaker would, fleshing out a character and creating a story. The story is not a linear story or a sequential story. It is more like the woman who is looking at the man who is shaving- it starts from there. They become like sutradhars (story tellers) of the entire work. There is a reverie - a recall of earlier times with the water and the swimmer and the man looking back at his past which is layered with some joy but also trials and tribulations which have to do with jealously, envy and those type of emotions. Hence the title.” (Correspondence with the artist, January 2016)
Narration is an essential characteristic of Malani’s oeuvre. Eminent critic, Geeta Kapur in her book, When was Modernism comments on this work, “Nalini adapts a conventional European format for the presentation of grief. She poses her figures in a frieze but turns them about to face/evade each other with an acid and insinuating comment about dissembling. The painting is about the motivation within all contrived ensembles like tableaux/paintings to first block and then release psychic energies into narrative effect. (G. Kapur, When was Modernism, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 2000, p. 26)
Malani elaborates, “This is an important work for me, simply because of my practice which is an ongoing dialogue between my paintings, drawings, videos, installations and large assemblages. When I work, it is not on one subject or one painting. It is always a series that leads to something major. This is my largest work in the medium of oil. I wanted the main figures – the couple to be almost life size so that when the viewer stands next to the work, he or she becomes a part of it. Love, Deception and Intrigue is seminal as it led to the larger works I am doing now - such as the multi panel paintings Splitting the Other (2007) and Twice Upon a Time (2014) and the large video and shadow play installations with several streams of imagery channeled onto screens and monitors. They become immersive environments, where the viewer can walk in and become a participant.” (Correspondence with the artist, January 2016)
In her art, Malani works with a range of literary and visual references. The literary inspiration for Love, Deception and Intrigue came from noted French writer and activist, Simone de Beauvoir’s pivotal novel, She Came to Stay. Malani explains, “the work was inspired by the fictionalized chronicle of de Beauvoir’s passionate and poly-amorous relationship with Jean-Paul Satre wherein she was consumed by her jealousy of one of Sartre’s lovers. Through her soliloquys, she expresses that she should not feel this way and how she will cope with, and overcome, her feelings. The nuancing that de Beauvoir brought out in the novel was amazing, and I was interested in transforming that kind of nuance into the visual. Compositionally, I was influenced by Hamzanama. It doesn’t seem as apparent but the treatment of the background - the way it flows in a seamless way between the interior (home with couple) and exterior (the sea and garden) is similar to the rendition in folios from the ancient manuscript where the natural and architectural details flow in and out of each other flawlessly and convincingly.”(Correspondence with the artist, January 2016)
Over the last two decades, Malani’s work has been seen as much overseas as within India, being represented with fifteen solo museum exhibitions, including three retrospectives, such as Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi (2014), Asia Society, New York (2014), Musée des Beaux Arts, Lausanne (2010), the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2007) and the New Museum, New York (2002). She exhibited in twenty prominent biennials and triennials including Documenta 13, Kassel (2013), Sydney Biennale (2008); Venice Biennale (2005) and the Istanbul Biennale (2003). In 2013, she became the first woman from Asia to be awarded the Fukuoka Arts and Culture Prize in the field of contemporary art. Current and upcoming exhibitions include her seminal multimedia installation, Gamepieces featured in Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York (ongoing – April 10, 2016), an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston centering around her signature work, In Search of Vanished Blood (July – October 2016) as well as a retrospective solo show spanning 1969 to 2016 at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (October 2017 - January 2018).