The second day of Art Mumbai 2025 at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse unfolded with renewed energy as galleries across the fair deepened their narratives of materiality, memory, and philosophical enquiry. From Emami Art’s multigenerational dialogues and Shrine Empire’s feminist readings to Art Centrix Space’s vernacular vision, the day underscored the evolving landscape of Indian contemporary art and its expanding global resonance.
Emami Art: A Living Continuum of Artistic Voices
Emami Art’s booth (C74) presented a curatorial selection that wove together artistic generations and approaches, reflecting the changing face of Indian art. The curation features multigenerational selection of twelve artists — including Anjan Modak, Arunima Choudhury, Bapi Das, Debashish Paul, Partha Pratim Deb, Prasanta Sahu, Sayanee Sarkar, Sibaprasad Karchaudhuri, Soma Das, Suman Dey, Tapas Biswas, and Ujjal Dey — whose diverse practices span painting, sculpture, textile, embroidery, and mixed media. The presentation creates a critical dialogue on contemporary artistic discourses, reflecting the evolving cultural and social landscape of South Asia.
artwork by Sibaprasad Karchaudhuri
“We have been featuring our artists at the fair since its inaugural edition. This year’s presentation features an eclectic line-up that captures the complexities and nuances of our time,” said Richa Agarwal, CEO of Emami Art and Chairperson, KCC. She noted the significance of platforms like Art Mumbai in fostering critical exchange among artists, collectors, and cultural institutions.
Shrine Empire: Feminist Undertones and Political Poetics
Shrine Empire’s exhibition reflected the gallery’s sustained engagement with layered material practices and sociopolitical commentary. Artists such as Amitava, Divya Singh, Hema Shironi, and Sajan Mani explored intersections of identity, memory, and the body.
At the Sculpture Park, curated by Veerangana Solanki, Bangladeshi artist Tayeba Begum Lipi’s sculptures created spaces of quiet confrontation. Through the language of metal and mirror, Lipi addressed the emotional labor and quiet endurance of women’s lives, transforming experiences of grief and motherhood into meditations on resilience and visibility.
Image 1: Tayeba Begum Lipi | Absent, 2024 | Sculpture and stainless steel | 20 x 22 x 29.5 inches | Edition 2 of 3 (A)
Image 2: Tayeba Begum Lipi | Let’s Go To The Park, 2019 | Stainless steel | 35 x 25 x 41.9 inches | Edition 1 of 3
Art Centrix Space: Material and Philosophical Dialogues
Delhi-based gallery Art Centrix Space, led by Founder-Director Monica Jain, presented a booth (C43) that expanded the discourse around process, ecology, and material transformation. Titled around ideas of continuity and reinterpretation, the presentation featured fourteen works by Siri Devi Khandavilli, Rahul Jain and Gunjan Arora (Threadarte), K. P. Pradeepkumar, Shanthamani Muddaiah, Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty, and Hemant Gavankar.
Art Centrix Space’s curatorial language distinguishes itself through a vernacular and philosophical sensibility that foregrounds regional practices as active sites of global conversation. Khandavilli’s transnational reinterpretations of Indian craft and mythology stood alongside Jain and Arora’s textile-based installations that meditate on sustainability and resilience. Shanthamani Muddaiah’s marble sculpture Bloom, part of the fair’s all-women Sculpture Park, invoked transformation through contrasting fragility and endurance, while Mohanty and Pradeepkumar explored ecologies both material and metaphysical. Gavankar, a recipient of the Art Centrix Painting Grant 2024, represented a new generation reimagining urban memory and belonging.
“Our presentation at Art Mumbai this year continues an enquiry central to the gallery—how artists translate experience into material and thought,” said Monica Jain. “Each practice carries a distinct vocabulary shaped by process and reflection, yet together they form a continuum that reconsiders how art interprets and reshapes the world we inhabit.”
Black Cube Gallery: Tradition in Dialogue with the Contemporary
Curated by Sanya Malik, Black Cube Gallery’s showcase (Booth C41) bridged modernist and contemporary vocabularies through an eclectic mix of masters and emerging artists. Works by Krishen Khanna, Madhvi Parekh, Himmat Shah, and Thota Vaikuntam conversed with contemporary voices including Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi and Yashika Sugandh, creating a layered material experience across painting, sculpture, embroidery, and functional art.
Artworks by Thota Vaikuntam
The juxtaposition of Thota Vaikuntam’s jewellery works with Sugandh’s nature-inspired design objects redefined the boundaries between art and craft, while Shah’s sculptural abstractions and Khanna’s humanist canvases reaffirmed the enduring emotional force of Indian modernism.
A Fair of Expanding Discourses
Day two at Art Mumbai 2025 illuminated the fair’s strength as a site of layered artistic enquiry, one that celebrates lineage and experimentation equally. Through the voices of emerging and established artists alike, the event continues to map new trajectories of thought in South Asian art, where form, philosophy, and material renew their dialogue with every edition.
Cover Image: Pala Pothupitiye | The Legacy of Superman 03, 2025 | Acrylic on paper | 12 x 16.5 inches | Image Courtesy: Shrine Empire
Athmaja Biju is the Editor at Abir Pothi. She is a Translator and Writer working on Visual Culture.
