LONDON.- The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi and Christie's London announce The Meeting Ground: Scenes from the KNMA Collection. This major institutional exhibition takes place at Christie's King Street, London, from 16th July to 21st August 2026, as part of Christie's summer exhibition series. Presenting this exhibition in London extends KNMA's ongoing international programme, bringing South Asian artistic histories to wider audiences and creating new contexts for engagement with the collection.
Kiran Nadar, Chairperson of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, said: “Since its founding, KNMA has been committed to situating South Asian artistic practices within broader international conversations. Presented during a pivotal moment of institutional expansion, The Meeting Ground reflects both the depth of the collection and the evolving role of KNMA as a multidisciplinary cultural institution speaking with the world from South Asia. International engagement is a pillar of our vision, opening up new frameworks for dialogue and scholarship.”
Anthea Peers, President, Christie's EMEA, shared: “We are thrilled to collaborate with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art on The Meeting Ground: Scenes from the KNMA Collection, a landmark exhibition for Christie's London and for our summer programme at King Street. KNMA is a leading museum in India with an important place in the development and presentation of modern and contemporary art from South Asia. It's been a real pleasure collaborating with Kiran Nadar and her team on bringing this project to life here in London.”
Founded in 2010, KNMA is currently undergoing a transformative expansion with the development of its new standalone museum complex in New Delhi. Envisioned as India's largest multidisciplinary cultural space at more than one million square feet, this new home will be a global destination for the visual and performing arts. The Meeting Ground offers a rare glimpse into the museum's growing collection and its mission to connect diverse artistic histories in South Asia, through sustained processes of acquisition, research, and curatorial engagement.
Presented in collaboration with Christie's, The Meeting Ground is curated by Akansha Rastogi with Preeti Bahadur, Avijna Bhattacharya, Premjish Achari and Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi. The exhibition will bring together works across modern and contemporary practices alongside folk and indigenous artistic expressions from South Asia.
The Meeting Ground invites viewers into an unfolding of several 'scenes'. It begins as dialogue and contestations between modernists including M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, Jeram Patel, K.C.S. Paniker, K.G. Subramanyan and K. Ramanujam and different centres of artistic creation in India from the 1950s to today.
This historical focus from the early twentieth century expands into a scene offering performative metaphors, where artists such as Neha Choksi, LN Tallur, and Simryn Gill reflect on how individuals and institutions hold forms of listening and mark-making to keep memories agile.
The third strand of the exhibition foregrounds protagonists like Zainul Abedin, Anwar Jalal Shemza, Zarina Hashmi, F.N. Souza, Bani Abidi and others who inhabit multiple homelands and shared worlds, often refusing to belong to places defined by the severity of modern maps.
Interwoven with these movements are masters of indigenous traditions, such as Jangarh Singh Shyam, Jivya Soma Mashe, and the collaboration between Gauri Gill and Rajesh Vangad.
With these embedded narratives of desire, belonging, and loss, the exhibition invites viewers to rethink the 'institutional' and opens up new possibilities for how a collection may be experienced. In bringing these dialogues to audiences beyond the KNMA's walls, the exhibition also reflects a commitment to widening access to art, and creating greater visibility for South Asian artistic practices within a global cultural conversation.
Akansha Rastogi, Lead Curator of the exhibition, and Associate Director, Visual Arts, KNMA, notes: “The region of South Asia is connected through a shared visual history and deep cultural resonances, and the exhibition presents these rich and complex conversations through an intergenerational mix of artists. The exhibition represents how we think about the museum and the possibilities within the collection, while also offering a slice of the museum's 15 years of exhibition history, which has evolved under the artistic direction of Roobina Karode.”
Damian Vesey, International Specialist, South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art, Christie's, adds: “We are profoundly grateful to Kiran Nadar for her vision in bringing this exceptional and exciting range of works from the museum's remarkable collection to Christie's London at such a pivotal moment in its evolution. As a leading museum in India, KNMA has been instrumental in advancing the global exposure and education of South Asian art. This exhibition marks the first time Christie's London has dedicated its summer exhibition to South Asia, as well as to a single institution. I look forward to welcoming audiences to Christie's this summer to experience the extraordinary breadth and vitality of practices that cut across disciplines and media firsthand.”
KNMA and Christie's Education will be hosting a 3-day, in-person course (28th to 30th July) aligned with the opening of The Meeting Ground: Scenes from the KNMA Collection. Through lectures, excursions, and exhibition visits, the course offers an introduction to South Asian art and the ideas explored in the exhibition. Guest speakers to be announced.
This is the fourth annual non-selling summer exhibition at Christie's King Street, preceded by Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World in 2023, Ahmed Mater: Chronicles in 2024, and Marwan: A Soul in Exile in 2025.
