LONDON.- Striking new prints made from stills from a monumental projected ‘animation chamber’ and a large, printed rug, on which visitors were invited to recline, have been gifted to museums in Bath and Exeter following National Gallery exhibitions.

The first of the Gallery’s Bicentenary acquisitions for other museums, the works by the Gallery’s first Contemporary Fellow, Nalini Malani, go to the Holburne Museum, Bath, having been funded by Art Fund; while those of its 2023 Artist in Residence, Céline Condorelli, join the collection of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter (RAMM), funded by the Contemporary Art Society. Condorelli’s works are her first to enter a UK public collection.

The acquisitions are either part of, or inspired by, recent residencies and presentations of the artists’ work, at both the National Gallery and these partner UK museums.

The Contemporary Fellowship with Art Fund, and the Artist in Residence, in association with the Contemporary Art Society, are strands of the National Gallery’s Modern and Contemporary Programme, that include the acquisition of a work by the artist for its partner venues.

To mark the legacy of Nalini Malani’s National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship with Art Fund (2020-23), nine unique, hand-coloured prints by the artist have been presented to the collection of the Holburne Museum. These digital pigment prints, based on nine stills from her ‘animation chamber,’ My Reality is Different, shown at both Bath and London in 2022-23, have been drawn over with pencil, ink and acrylic to expand on themes explored in the animations of her immersive video installation.

The selection of nine still frames from the animations has been made to respond to the collection of the Holburne Museum. The selection of stills from the animations include portraits of imagined figures and details of the painting by Johan Zoffany (1733-1810) from the Holburne’s collection alongside other iconic paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797), Caravaggio (1571-1610) and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).

Through her research during the Contemporary Fellowship, Malani selected 25 paintings from across both the National Gallery and the Holburne Museum, Bath, as the basis of over 80 individual animations. Using an iPad, Malani drew directly over reproductions of the paintings to produce digitally drawn animations that obscured or bought renewed focus to the details she focused on. Her animated figures and imagined shapes appear to interact with elements within the paintings, including Samson and Delilah by Rubens, Holbein’s The Ambassadors, and Johan Zoffany’s group portrait of The Auriol and Dashwood Families.

Interspersed in the cycle of animations were portraits of imagined people from Asia and Africa, described by Malani as members of the subaltern, whose faces disappear again behind colourful stock-market charts. They reflect those marginalised by society, today and in the past, but whose labour underpins global economies connecting us all. The animations were looped across nine channels that when projected across the walls of the gallery overlapped one another creating a 40-metre-long panorama of unexpected and endless juxtapositions and connections.

Céline Condorelli’s 'Bulk, Everlasting Colour' has been presented to the collection of RAMM (Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter) by the Contemporary Art Society through a partnership with the 2023 National Gallery Artist in Residence programme, with the support of Anna Yang and Joseph Schull, 2023/24. This artwork featured as part of the artist’s exhibition at the National Gallery.

The rug was used in place of the gallery furniture inviting visitors to recline on it and experience the Gallery in a different way. The graphic, printed on the carpet, was produced from technical images of all the materials in the Gallery – such as marble, wood and wall fabric. They were made with the National Gallery’s Scientific Department using scanning methods usually applied to paintings. Condorelli combined these scans with microscopic photographs of pigments found in the paintings of the collection that hang in the room, digitally creating new ‘paintings’ that came to represent all these materials.

Another work by Condorelli acquired for Exeter is the print 'Pentimenti (0751)', one a series of prints produced by the artist in which she removes the figures from the foregrounds of 15th- century portraits to reveal the textile hanging as backdrops behind them. For this selected print, she worked with Giovanni Santi’s The Virgin and Child (perhaps about 1488), using software to digitally remove the figures and reconstruct the textile and landscape of the background. It makes a strong connection to her interest in textiles and their role within the art gallery to frame and facilitate the act of looking.

Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, says: ‘I am delighted that in our 200th anniversary year, thanks to the generous funding of Art Fund and the Contemporary Art Society, we have been able to secure our first acquisitions for two of our UK partner museums. With Céline Condorelli’s 'Bulk, Everlasting Colour' and 'Pentimenti' in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, and Nalini Malani’s new prints from 'My Reality is Different' in the Holburne Museum, Bath, there is a permanent legacy of the work of these artists from this important joint collaboration.‘

Jenny Waldman, Director of Art Fund, says: ‘Our public collections have an enduring power to inspire, as demonstrated by Nalini Malani's remarkable works created in response to, and in conversation with, works from the National Gallery and the Holburne Museum in Bath for 'My Reality is Different'. I'm delighted that the Holburne Museum will acquire nine unique prints from the show for their permanent collection, where they will serve as an important legacy of Nalini Malani’s National Gallery Contemporary Fellowship with Art Fund.'

Dr Chris Stephens, Director of the Holburne Museum, Bath, says: ‘We are very proud to be adding nine prints by Nalini Malani to our Collection, through this prestigious collaboration. The works were developed with such thought and care, and will play an important role in expanding the voices and stories within our Collection. We are extremely grateful to the National Gallery, Art Fund, and Nalini for this wonderful opportunity.'

Cllr Bob Foale, Exeter City Council’s Portfolio Holder for Arts, Culture & Tourism, says: ‘As the National Gallery’s partner on its artist-in-residence programme last year, we were fortunate to work closely with their Curator of Contemporary Projects, Priyesh Mistry, who supervised Céline Condorelli’s residency and provided support to RAMM. This unique opportunity to acquire innovative contemporary artwork by an influential and inspiring woman artist ensures RAMM’s art collection continues to reflect society today. We look forward to sharing this exciting new work with RAMM’s visitors in our autumn programme, and will be encouraging them to recline on the carpet to view RAMM’s fine art collection from a different perspective.’