Splashes of feminist fervour

Women artists no longer need a gender-specific platform for their work even as a certain misogyny refuses to fade away three decades after the exhibition

From 1987-89, a group of four women artists came together to create a travelling exhibition, Through the Looking Glass, to provide themselves a platform in what was largely a male-dominated space in India. Considered among the more important exhibitions of that decade, Looking Glass featured Nalini Malani, Madhvi Parekh, Arpita Singh and Nilima Sheikh. In what seems a coincidence, a retrospective on Madhvi Parekh’s five-decade long career has just opened in New Delhi (disclaimer: Parekh’s show has been curated by this columnist), while another on Malani will open in France next month and in Italy in 2018. 

Malani came from an