Through this series of portraits entitled ‘People Come and Go’, Nalini Malani recalls individuals encountered in the neighbourhood of her studio, the Lohar Chawl Wholesale Market in Mumbai, between 1978 and 2002. Despite the time that has since elapsed, the memory of these figures is ever-present; the features of their faces are engraved in her memory. Her close and intense relationship with these people, who continue to come and go in her mind, can be seen in the busts or figures, who appear like fleeting figures, as if they had emerged from a dream. ‘People Come and Go’ is one element of a vast project that started with ‘Place for People’, an exhibition that was at once historic and seminal, co-organised by Nalini Malani in 1981 in Mumbai then in New Delhi.
The exhibition at the gallery coincides with the retrospective presented by the Centre Pompidou from 18 October 2017 to 8 January 2018, covering nearly five decades of her work: “The Rebellion of the Dead, Retrospective (1969 – 2018)”. The exhibition moves to the Castello di Rivoli in Turin from 27 March to 22 July 2018.