Following India's presence at this year's Venice Biennale and the first-ever exhibition of Indian artists at the 262-year-old Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, another major international showcase is set to put South Asian art in the spotlight. The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) will present ‘The Meeting Ground’ at Christie’s London from July 16 to August 21.
Curated by Akansha Rastogi alongside Preeti Bahadur, Avijna Bhattacharya, Premjish Achari and Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, ‘The Meeting Ground’ marks Christie’s first summer exhibition programme dedicated to South Asia. Bringing together around 180 works by 67 artists from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the exhibition seeks to move beyond both geographical and artistic boundaries.
The exhibition places modernists, who tend to take centre stage, in conversation with folk, tribal and contemporary practitioners, challenging hierarchies. Works by K. Ramanujam and Raqib Shaw will appear alongside those of contemporary artist Kulpreet Singh. The Progressive Artists' Group—M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza and F.N. Souza—will share space with Gond master Jangarh Singh Shyam and Warli artist Jivya Soma Mashe. The exhibition also pairs Bangladeshi painter Zainul Abedin's iconic Fisherman with works by Pakistani modernist Anwar Jalal Shemza.
"Our curatorial process began with a series of questions posed to the collection: How does it speak to histories of migration and movement across South Asia? What stories does it hold about collective artistic practices, artists' groups, and informal gatherings that have shaped the region's art history?" said the exhibition's lead curator Akansha Rastogi, explaining the idea behind the curation.
While national and international showcases tend to foreground the modernists, it would be interesting to see them sharing space with other artistic practises: FN Souza's Man and Woman Grinding Their Teeth (1957) alongside Jivya Soma Mashe's Warli works created with rice paste and cow dung on paper.
“For a long time, international presentations often relied on a familiar canon of artists. But I also think we are witnessing a meaningful shift,” Rastogi said. “This exhibition brings those generations into conversation, presenting works by emerging and mid-career artists alongside modern masters. It is through these intergenerational dialogues that we can begin to tell richer and more nuanced stories of South Asian art.”
Among the notable works is Gauri Gill and Rajesh C. Vangad's Factory and River II, which brings together Gill's monochromatic photography with Vangad's intricate landscape.
Speaking on the next chapter of Indian art globally, Rastogi said it would be practices grounded in archival inquiry, alongside those deeply invested in the social and ecological transformations unfolding across South Asia. “Artists today are engaging critically with questions of memory, environment, migration, identity, and community in ways that are both locally rooted and globally resonant.”
