NEW YORK, NY.- Asia Week New York announced that Shifting Landscapes: New Approaches to Modern + Contemporary South Asian Art, is slated for Thursday, February 27 at 4:30 p.m. (EST). To register click: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SYtGBp8VRjKdEAn8fD4kpA

Over the last decade, the global interest in modern and contemporary art from South Asia and its wide diaspora has grown exponentially. This distinguished panel will unpack some of the new and innovative approaches to modern and contemporary South Asian art that have characterized this period of growth, exploring significant changes in the local, regional and global landscapes of the category, particularly at the institutional level.

“We are privileged to welcome two leading experts in the field of contemporary South Asian art,” says Nishad Avari, Specialist and Head of Department for Indian Art at Christie’s New York, who will moderate the discussion.

Perhaps the most important supporter of the growth and evolution of modern and contemporary South Asian art has been the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), a private museum established in New Delhi by the avid collector Kiran Nadar in 2010. Deepanjana Klein, Director of Acquisitions and Development at KNMA, will highlight the museum’s evolution, its unparalleled collection, significant international collaborations and exciting plans.

Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts at the Barbican in London, who recently curated the critically acclaimed exhibition, The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998. The second in a series of collaborations between the Barbican and KNMA, this important show presented works by more than 30 Indian artists from a vital period of change and creativity in the country and sparked new international engagement and conversations around South Asian art and artists.

The Panelists

Nishad Avari is Specialist, Head of Department for Indian Art at Christie’s New York. He joined the South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art Department at Christie’s as an Associate Specialist in 2013, with more than eight years of auction experience in New York and Mumbai. Before entering the auction world, he worked on Picasso: Metamorphoses 1900–1972, the exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, Avari has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues, journals, and news publications. In 2017, he returned to New York to lead Christie's South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auctions and was appointed Head of the Department in 2022. He is a member of the Asia Week New York Planning Committee.

Shanay Jhaveri is the Barbican’s Head of Visual Arts. In September 2023, Jhaveri launched a new series of site-specific commissions at the Barbican including Ranjani Shettar's Cloud songs on the horizon (Barbican Conservatory) and Ibrahim Mahama’s Purple Hibiscus (Barbican Lakeside 2024). His most recent exhibition is The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998 which opened at the Barbican Art Gallery in October 2024. Previously, Jhaveri was Associate Curator of International Art from 2016 to 2022 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where he was responsible for collection building, working on special projects, commission and delivering exhibitions. Among the shows Jhaveri curated are the retrospective Phenomenal Nature: Mrinalini Mukherjee at the Met Breuer in 2019, Alex Da Cortes Met Roof Commission, As Long as the Sun Lasts and Carol Boves façade commission, The seances aren’t helping both in 2021.

Dr. Deepanjana Klein serves as Director of Acquisitions and Development at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), where she oversees acquisitions and international institutional collaborations. Previously, she was the International Head of Modern and Contemporary and Classical Indian and Southeast Asian Art at Christie's. She holds a Ph.D. in Indian Art History from De Montfort University, England, and has taught art history, theory, and aesthetics at both the Leicester School of Architecture and the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental Studies in Mumbai. A recipient of the Mellon Foundation (ArtStor) grant for her photographic documentation of the Ellora cave temples, she is currently writing a book on the Ellora caves.