The art world is currently reflecting on the enduring legacy of Jasper Johns, highlighted by a new Gagosian exhibition focusing on his 1970s output. Critic John Yau explores Johns's career-long fascination with materiality and the inevitable decay of art, noting how the artist uses newsprint and wax to acknowledge that nothing remains static in time.
Christie's auction house is launching a major sale titled 'Sublime Shadows' in London on June 11, featuring 93 works of South Asian Modern and contemporary art from an anonymous private collection. This marks the auction house's first dedicated South Asian Modern art sale in London since 2019, highlighting a surge in market activity and curatorial interest for the category.
The Indian art scene is set for a bustling April 2026 with a series of high-profile exhibitions across major cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Key highlights include Subodh Gupta’s monumental installations at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, a photographic tribute to Bombay by Raghubir Singh at Jhaveri Contemporary, and the public viewing of Raja Ravi Varma’s iconic 'Yashoda and Krishna' at the ShowKeen exhibition. These shows span a diverse range of media, from Akanksha Patil’s introspective narratives on migration to Laila Khan Furniturewalla’s raw, expressive paintings.
Amrita Jhaveri, a Brown University alumna, has transitioned from a pioneering role at Christie’s to becoming a central figure in the global promotion of South Asian art. After launching Christie’s Mumbai office in the 1990s—a time when modern Indian masterpieces sold for a fraction of their current multi-million dollar values—she co-founded Jhaveri Contemporary with her sister Priya. The gallery has gained international prestige by placing works by overlooked, female, and queer South Asian artists into the permanent collections of major institutions like the Tate Modern, the Met, and MoMA.
Grosvenor Gallery has announced the availability of a significant 1969 oil painting by M.F. Husain titled "Untitled (Head of a Horse)." The work, which features the artist's signature equine subject matter with bared teeth and exaggerated features, was recently showcased at Frieze Masters 2024 as part of the "South Asian Modernists in Paris" exhibition. The painting has a documented provenance involving the Vadehra Art Gallery and has been held in a private London collection since 2007.
The Seattle region is hosting a diverse array of visual arts exhibitions throughout April and May 2026, with a strong emphasis on cultural identity and heritage. Highlights include Akash Pamarthy’s solo photography show "Sikh Ohio" at the M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery, Miya Sukune’s historical installation "TADAIMA: I’m Home" at MOHAI, and a permanent mural installation by Erin Shigaki at Bellevue College. These shows span various media, from traditional Korean moon jar-inspired ceramics by Kelly Haejung Paik to experimental works made of rice and lentils by Yaminee Patel.
Aicon Art in New York has opened its first exhibition dedicated entirely to Indian miniature painting, titled "Courtly Visions: Indian Miniature Painting." The show features a breadth of works created between roughly 1630 and the early 19th century, showcasing the intricate detail and narrative scenes characteristic of the genre. It aims to highlight the diverse styles and themes that emerged from various royal courts across the Indian subcontinent.
India has announced its artist lineup for the 61st Venice Biennale, featuring Alwar Balasubramaniam, Sumakshi Singh, Ranjani Shettar, Asim Waqif, and Skarma Sonam Tashi. The national pavilion, located in the Arsenale, will showcase a diverse range of installations that explore themes of architectural memory, environmental sustainability, and the physical processes of nature. From Tashi’s recreations of Ladakhi homes using recycled materials to Singh’s spectral thread-based architectural fragments, the works collectively examine the fragility of heritage and the shifting relationship between humans and their environments.
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has launched "Climate Culture Care," the first solo exhibition by a Bangladesh-based artist in a UK museum, featuring the work of Soma Surovi Jannat. Developed during her residency at the institution, the show includes approximately 40 works, ranging from intricate drawings on paper to a 30-foot-long scroll and an ephemeral site-specific wall drawing. The exhibition is part of the Ashmolean NOW series, which tasks contemporary artists with creating new interventions inspired by the museum’s historical and archaeological collections.
The exhibition 'Continuum,' curated by artist-curator Gauri Minocha at The Art Hub Gallery in Gurugram, presents over 100 artworks by South Asian artists within a refurbished house turned home gallery. Works are displayed across rooms, hallways, stairways, and terraces, moving away from the traditional white cube model to allow viewers to experience art in a domestic setting. The show spans from the 1950s to 2026, featuring modern masters like Ram Kumar, Jamini Roy, and Rubin Mondal, with each room defined by a distinct color palette and mood.
The Ishara Art Foundation in the UAE has launched 'Urdu Worlds,' the region's first contemporary art exhibition dedicated to the Urdu language. Curated by Hammad Nasar, the show features a visual dialogue between the late Indian-born artist Zarina and Pakistani multimedia artist Ali Kazim. The exhibition showcases Zarina’s delicate woodcut prints, including her seminal 'Home is a Foreign Place,' alongside an expansive survey of Kazim’s paintings, sculptures, and his new 'Alphabets' series, marking his institutional debut in West Asia.
Saad Khan, a New York-based archivist, has developed Khajistan, an expansive digital and physical archive dedicated to preserving censored and overlooked mass media from South Asia to the Maghreb. The collection features a diverse array of ephemera, including homoerotic imagery, working-class street posters, and banned magazines that are often erased from official cultural records. By documenting everything from WhatsApp forwards to vintage film posters, Khan creates a space where the lived experiences of queer, trans, and working-class individuals in these regions are validated and archived.
British-South Asian artist Helena Samarasinghe is presenting her debut solo exhibition, "Reaching, Touching, Shedding," at Camberwell Space in London. The show features a series of vibrant drawings and sculptural cut-out installations that explore the intersections of sport, power, and identity. Developed during her residency as the 2024 Vanguard Prize winner, the works utilize oil, soft pastels, and charcoal to depict brown women engaged in activities like football, wrestling, and athletics, drawing stylistic inspiration from 19th-century Bengali Kalighat painting.
Emami Art in Kolkata is set to launch two concurrent exhibitions on March 20, 2026, titled "Nothing Twice" and "Chance Remains of Another Time." "Nothing Twice," a group show curated by Ushmita Sahu, features nine emerging women artists exploring themes of impermanence and domesticity through diverse media including textiles, ceramics, and video. Running alongside it is a solo presentation by Kolkata-based artist Suman Dey, whose new polyptych works utilize abstract fragments to mirror the complexities and decay of contemporary urban life.
The COMO Museum of Art is hosting "Traces: Drawing Practices Now," a major group exhibition curated by Hassan Sheikh featuring 19 artists. The show explores the evolution of drawing from a preparatory medium into an independent, sophisticated art form. Notable participants include Ali Kazim, Muhammad Ali Talpur, and Ghulam Mohammad, whose works range from meticulous mark-making and subverted scripts to expressive, intuitive compositions that challenge traditional linguistic and visual codes.
Artworld – Sarala’s Art Centre is hosting "Trilogy," an exhibition featuring the works of C Douglas, K Muralidharan, and Rm Palaniappan. Curated by Bishwajit Banerjee, the show highlights the shared lineage of these three artists who emerged from the Government College of Fine Arts in Chennai. While they share a common academic foundation, the exhibition showcases how each artist has developed a distinct visual language and divergent creative path over several decades.
The Patan Museum in Lalitpur recently hosted "Sapanaka Paila" (Steps to Dreams), an exhibition showcasing paintings by nine artists with intellectual disabilities. Organized by Mikha Creative Begins, the showcase featured works by artists including Sama Bajracharya and Sandhya Singh, whose vibrant depictions of nature, animals, and personal aspirations often bypass traditional artistic conventions. The exhibition served as a platform for these individuals to communicate complex emotions and dreams that they are often unable to express through verbal language.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting "Household Gods: Hindu Devotional Prints, 1860–1930," an exhibition exploring the evolution of Hindu visual culture through the rise of chromolithography. The show traces how mass-produced prints transitioned sacred imagery from exclusive temple environments into the intimate, everyday spaces of domestic shrines.
Runjeet Singh Gallery, a new commercial gallery focusing on artists from the South Asian diaspora, has opened in Leamington at 37 Chandos Street. The gallery launched with an opening exhibition from April 24 to 26, featuring work by 11 emerging and established contemporary artists. Founder Runjeet Singh, who has 26 years of experience in antiques and contemporary art collecting, aims to provide a platform for UK-based South Asian diasporic artists and those whose practices are informed by South Asian narratives and traditions.
A new art gallery in Leamington Spa is set to open with a focus on South Asian artists. The inaugural exhibition will feature paintings and works from eight local and national artists, including Amrit Singh Sandhu, Simran Kaur Panesar, and Rati Devi Sivyer. Sandhu, who also appears as an expert on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, has worked in the art industry for 12 years and previously exhibited in London, New York, Paris, and Mumbai.
The New York Times reports on the ongoing legal and personal disputes between the brothers who co-founded Manhattan’s Aicon Art Gallery, which specializes in modern and contemporary South Asian art. The article details how sibling rivalry and disagreements over business decisions have led to a series of lawsuits and fractured relationships, threatening the gallery's stability and reputation.
A new commercial gallery called the Runjeet Singh Gallery is opening in Leamington town centre at 37 Chandos Street. Its inaugural weekend runs from April 24 to 26, 2026, and it plans to present a rotating program of solo and group exhibitions focusing on artists from the South Asian diaspora.
Gallery Silver Scapes will present 'Silent Stories', a solo exhibition by Sri Lankan artist Shanaka Kulathunga, at the CCA Building, Bikaner House in New Delhi from May 21 to 28, 2026. This marks the artist's first solo presentation in India, featuring acrylic and oil paintings that explore memory, everyday life, and rural Sri Lankan landscapes through figuration and narrative depth. Curated by Archana Khare-Ghose, the exhibition includes a publication launch and aims to foster cross-cultural dialogue between India and Sri Lanka.