The renowned artist duo Thukral and Tagra return to Delhi with Games People Play 02, an innovative exhibition running from October 6-16, 2025, at Lalit Kala Akademi. This marks a significant milestone as the first major exhibition in the capital presented by Chennai-based gallery Ashvita’s, affirming their commitment to engaging with audiences on a national platform.
Dominus Aeris Flux VIII | 2025 | Image Courtesy: Ashvita’s
A Rare Curatorial Format
Games People Play 02 presents a groundbreaking approach to exhibition-making, conceived as a “playtest in exhibition-making” — a curatorial gameboard that unfolds over ten days through ten distinct works. Each day activates a new emotional or structural state, whether vulnerability, anxiety, hope, reverie, or concepts like belief, speculation, conjecture, adaptivity, resilience, and care. This dynamic format transforms the traditional static gallery experience into an evolving landscape where artworks move and grow with each passing day.
“To see play only as leisure is limiting. Through psychological, cultural, political, and environmental lenses, play-ing becomes a condition of life itself, revealing both our freedoms and our anxieties,” explain Thukral and Tagra in their statement.
Conceptual Foundations and Historical Context
The exhibition draws inspiration from psychiatrist Eric Berne’s seminal 1964 book “Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships”. Berne’s work examined unconscious patterns of behaviour, roles, and strategies that shape human interactions through what he termed psychological “games” — subtle, often repetitive scripts people perform to negotiate power, attention, intimacy, or survival. The artist duo translates these psychological frameworks into an artistic context, examining how invisible rules play out across cultural, social, and emotional terrains.
This iteration builds upon their acclaimed 2015 exhibition at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, which was “conceived as an institute-as-arena for cultural reflexes — a lens to observe how we perform, negotiate, and perceive cultural matters”. The original show featured interactive works including the “Walk of Life” game, built upon the ancient Indian card game Ganjifa and depicting the Dashavatar, the ten incarnations of Hindu god Vishnu.
Dominus Aeris Flux VII | 2025 | Image Courtesy: Ashvita’s
Transformative Artistic Interventions
Central to the exhibition are works that reimagine familiar activities as sites of reflection and transformation. The duo stages new situations drawing on strategies of relational art, creating participatory formats of public engagement. In one powerful intervention, visitors are invited to transform hate into acts of care, while the familiar game of ping pong evolves from competitive pastime to contemplative practice.
Two Decades of Artistic Evolution
The exhibition coincides with a major milestone — the 20th anniversary of Thukral and Tagra Studio, which began with their first exhibition in 2005. The Delhi-based duo, comprising Jiten Thukral (b. 1976, Jalandhar, Punjab) and Sumir Tagra (b. 1979, New Delhi), have consistently explored how art can build bridges between communities, ideas, and lived experiences.
Their multifaceted practice encompasses painting, gaming, archiving, and publishing, reflecting deep engagement with India’s cultural and political landscape. While their early work examined global consumer culture, recent interests in ecology and climate change revisit their family histories of migration and farming in Punjab.
Their immersive, multi-modal sensory installations offer seamless accessibility to audiences from varied backgrounds, breaking through the spectatorial protocols of “high art”. This approach aligns with their belief that art should be a vehicle for social transformation and community building.
Critical Recognition and Global Reach
The duo’s work has garnered international acclaim, with exhibitions at prestigious institutions including Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Arken Museum in Denmark, Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, and Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. Their 2010 solo show “Match Fixed” at the Ullens Centre of Contemporary Art in Beijing and various participations in major biennials demonstrate their global artistic significance.
Ashvita’s Delhi Debut
The exhibition marks a significant moment for Ashvita’s, the Chennai-based gallery founded by Ashvin E. Rajagopalan. As Chairman and Director, Rajagopalan expressed his delight at welcoming Delhi audiences to this inaugural capital exhibition, viewing it as strengthening their vision of building larger, more meaningful dialogues in contemporary art.
Rajagopalan, a graduate of Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, has curated over 50 shows of modern and contemporary Indian art and serves as Director of the Piramal Art Foundation, which houses one of India’s most important collections of modern art.
Games People Play 02 runs daily from 11 AM to 7 PM at Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, with the preview and inauguration scheduled for October 6th, 2025. This immersive, evolving exhibition promises to challenge conventional notions of spectatorship while offering visitors the opportunity to become active participants in an ongoing artistic experiment that reveals the profound connections between play, psychology, and social transformation.
Cover Image: Coniecturas IV | Image Courtesy: Ashwita’s
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