Indian artist Nalini Malani has won the biennial Joan Miró Prize for 2019. The award is named after Spanish painter and sculptor Joan Miró, one of the most influential artists the 20th century.

Malani, born in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 1946, considers her work to be influenced by her experiences as a refugee during Partition. She now lives in Mumbai.

The award jury noted Malani’s “longstanding commitment to the silenced and the dispossessed all over the world, most particularly women”. It also praised her “prodigious intellectual curiosity, her radical imagination and her socio-political awareness”.

Fundació Joan Miró, the Spanish art museum that gives the award along with the bank La Caixa, also noted Malani’s “complex artistic quest based on immersive installations”. It said the jury had acknowledged her “personal iconography where a profound knowledge of ancient mythologies converges with a bold condemnation of contemporary injustices”.

La Caixa will provide Malani a €70,000 (Rs 54.5 lakh) award and cover the production of an exhibition of her work in 2020 in Barcelona. Past recipients of the prize are Olafur Eliasson, Pipilotti Rist, Mona Hatoum, Roni Horn, Ignasi Aballí and Kader Attia.

Joan Miró set up the Fundació Joan Miró in 1975. He died in 1983.

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