What stands out at India Art Fair 2026

Modern titan M F Husain’s work Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne at Aicon Contemporary, a homage to the master filmmaker Satyajit Ray.(Express Photo by Abhinav Saha)

The modernist titan MF Husain features across several spaces: at Aicon Contemporary you can catch his work Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, a homage to the master filmmaker Satyajit Ray. At Art Exposure, you can catch one of his iconic works Untitled (horses), acrylic on canvas.

Chennai’s Ashvita’s gallery brings several stalwarts of the Madras Movement, including Velu Viswanadhan, P Perumal, Achuthan Kudallur, who are alumni of Government College of Fine Arts in Chennai. These artists’ abstract modernism, driven by colour, texture and rhythmic line, giving an early narrative of South Indian abstraction.

Going further back in time, Dhoomimal Gallery looks at the works of the likes Krishen Khanna, KK Hebbar’s Untitled from “Rocket” Series, Jamini Roy’s tempera on cloth, among others.

International Artists: Global Dialogues

Performance art legend Marina Abramović appears in her first collaboration with Nature Morte at the fair. Her photographs, one of which is related to her multi-channel video installation Eight Lessons on Happiness with a Happy End (2008) and the others titled Energy Hat (gardening) and Energy Hat (reading) are from her “Energy Clothes” Series (conceived in 2001, but was photographed in 2001-2003) laying the groundwork for her upcoming “Art Dubai Digital” show.

Ai Weiwei’s “Iron Root” is a series of large-scale sculptures cast from actual, weathered tree roots using an ancient “lost-wax” technique, often covered in a rust patina, showcased at Nature Morte.

The Italian gallery Galleria Continua is showing major works of several artists, including Ai Weiwei’s Grape, an installation of 27 stools, placed in a way to make it look like grapes from afar, and Anish Kapoor’s Non-Object Black piece: a deceptively minimal black surface that reveals a bulging form only when viewed from angle, a physical meditation on space and perception.

Performance art legend Marina Abramović appears in her first collaboration with Nature Morte features her photographs, titled Energy Hat (gardening) and Energy Hat (reading) from her “Energy Clothes” Series.(Express Photo by Abhinav Saha)

Experimenting With Form

At Gallery Maskara, Jaipur-based artist Prashant Pandey has an installation made with 3,50,000 discarded cigarette butts. Collected from pavements and street corners over a period of five years, the carefully woven tgogether buds form suspended sculptures that resemble organic skins and cosmic topographies.

Juhikadevi Bhanjdeo’s installation work titled River, made using steel safety pins and cotton velvet clothes. The work presented by Latitude 28 gallery, reminds one of her earlier works with safety pins at the Delhi Contemporary Art Week. Her work is an abstract exploration of textiles, motifs, memories held by the fabric amongst other things.

Presented by DMINTI New York, Sonal Ambani’s The Last Stamp reflects on the changing nature of communication. Triggered by Denmark’s recent removal of all public post boxes, a postbox constructed from stainless-steel timepieces invites visitors to write postcards, foregrounding the human impulse to connect.

Jaipur-based artist Prashant Pandey with his installation made of cigarette buds. (Express Photo by Abhinav Saha)

Contemporary Pulse

Subodh Gupta’s work titled Drift of a Star at Nature Morte, transforms domestic utensils of everyday use into a celestial field. A central vessel (huge pot) holds the holds space while smaller vessels such as glasses, spoons, smaller ladles, tiffin boxes, descend and align. In order here extends his signature exploration of ordinary objects scaled into monumental presence interrogating identity, globalisation, and cultural memory.

At Gallery Espace, a Manjunath Kamath work occupies an entire wall, and outside are Vasudevan Akkitham’s paintings from the Covid years. While the LN Tallur sculpture at Chemould is attracting attention, so are Sudarshan Shetty and Rajyashri Goody at Gallery Ske, and at Emami Art people are queuing up to see Pradip Das’s work under a microscope.

At Shailesh BR’s solo presentation, among the several works is also the interactive machine You Will Become A Star, where a pixelated panel erupts with yellow lights in response to movement.

Among the several works Shailesh BR’s solo presentation is the interactive machine You Will Become A Star. (Express Photo by Abhinav Saha)

Outdoor Works & Public Projects

Judy Chicago’s outdoor installation titled What If Women Ruled the World’is created in collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri of DIOR, as the impetus for a new revolutionary call-and-response to invite allies all around the world to share ideas and create a global community supporting gender rights. The answers and questions on the quilt is inspiring and gives perspective to a different society. The participatory project invites individuals globally to congregate, virtually and physically, to share their ideas and create a global community, adding a bold conceptual frame to the fair’s external landscape.

Patiala-based artist Kulpreet Singh reflects on the agricultural and farming practices of Punjab. His installation inquires into the animal, fungal, and plant species that are plummeting towards their extinction and invites visitors to add to this growing list. Extinction Archive features over 900 instances of “animal, fungal, and plant species” across the world drawn from the “IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.”

The Charpai Project conceptualised by Ayush Kasliwal for Serendipity Arts Festival 2018 in Goa makes a comeback at India Art Fair 2026, taking on a new dimension with digital intervention by Goji – an AI artist, who reinterprets the work through stories and imagination. The installation navigates through a lattice of stacked charpais, echoing the movement and unpredictability of a Snakes and Ladders board, inviting visitors to climb, recline, and connect in spontaneous and reflective ways.

Judy Chicago’s outdoor installation titled What If Women Ruled the World’is created in collaboration with Maria Grazia Chiuri of DIOR, created to share ideas and create a global community supporting gender rights. (Express Photo by Abhinav Saha)

Art Discussions & Workshops

Just inside the entrance, the KNMA Inclusion Lab sessions focus on accessibility, art equity, and inclusive practice, a thoughtful kickoff to engaging with the audience. Curated by LAND and supported by Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Learning Space (KNMA) hosts workshops focused on pedagogy, ecology and sustainability. For those interested in knowing and learning more, the fair also has several talks that are planned as well as art tours to suit varied interests.