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In Praise of Shadow

William Kentridge and Nalini Malani in conversation

Coinciding with the two exhibitions in Barcelona devoted to their careers, the South African artist William Kentridge and the Indian artist Nalini Malani will talk in this session about the points where their work coincides.

William Kentridge has devoted his work to the recent history of South Africa and the trauma of apartheid. Nalini Malani has focused her work on the situation of women and India's most dispossessed classes. In this dialogue, Kentridge and Malani, both world-renowned artists, will speak about the commitment of art to make traumatic memory visible and the most silenced voices heard. For them, shadow is not the dark face of reality but something that opposes the idea of transparent, immutable truth, and that allows us to glimpse the hidden structures of oppression. Their creations are an exercise in radical imagination and a cry of alarm before the blinding light of progress without memory. How is it possible to make a commitment to memory without ceasing to think about the future? What is the role of art in an uncertain present?

Judit Carrera, director of CCCB and Marko Daniel, director of Fundació Joan Miró will make an introduction and talk about William Kentridge's exhibition That Which Is Not Drawn, to be seen at the CCCB until 21 February, and Nalini Malani's exhibition You Don’t Hear Me that can be seen at the Fundació Joan Miró until 29 November.

Their discussion can be followed in English by streaming and will be moderated by the cultural journalist Anna Pérez Pagès: