Artistic interpretations of both personal and collective histories

‘Malleable Memory’ curated by Nitin Mukul at New York based Aicon Gallery features works by artists Jaishri Abichandani, Eric Ayotte, Shelly Bahl, Ruby Chishti, Mike Estabrook, Chitra Ganesh, Gisela Insuaste, Mala Iqbal, John Jurayj, Jen Liu, Naeem Mohaiemen, Sandeep Mukherjee, Nitin Mukul, Anjali Srinivasan, and Jaret Vadera.

The participating artists ask us to embrace our inherently subjective interpretations of both personal and collective histories through the evolving and illusive device of memory and the complicated ways such informs our understanding of ourselves, our past and our future. A curator's note explains:

”Truth is elusive, motivated by self-preservation. In the film Rashomon (1950) by Akira Kurosawa, various eyewitnesses describe their recollections of a violent crime. The accounts and their outcomes vary, leaving viewers to weigh each version against another. In the process the characters' stories collectively show the nature of truth as unstable and always susceptible to being shaped.

"Indeed, we have built-in survival mechanisms that may lead us to selectively edit or even invent memories to forge 'objectivity.' Besides showing the often self-centered nature of people, the film suggests a multitude of perspectives is necessary, objectivity impossible. In a similar spirit, this show calls upon a diverse range of artists and media. Taken together, they reveal a variety of positions, a multiplicity of voices drawing upon their own memories, expressing their own truths.”

"The artists examine the conceptions and expectations of reality each with their own unique interpretation. They present to us the idea of memory as a continuous and multifaceted representation in a constant state of flux. What emerges is a kind of objectivity that rests less upon tangible reference points, but rather associative recollections.

"Whether appropriated and reconfigured from popular sources, or registered as pigment on a surface, works in this show explore the crafting of reality, and
how memory serves us.