“We are finally seen as contenders”: delight in India as a question for the art boom of southern Asia | India

FOr over seven decades, the masterpiece had collected dust while hanging in the corridors of a Norwegian hospital. But last month, the monumental painting of 13 panels 1954 Untitled (Gram Yatra) -Ast of the most significant pieces of the modern art of southern Asia-First for $ 13.7 million from records in New York.

The painting rod sent ripples through the art world. It was not only the highest price ever paid for a painting by Maqbool Fida Husain, one of the most famous modern artists of India, but was the highest ever paid for any piece of modern Indian art at auction, going four times the estimated price. So far it has also been the most expensive works of art auctioned in 2025.

The Indian artists and more widely than southern Asia have failed to receive the same recognition of their western counterparts for a long time. Few were exhibited in the large galleries and collections of the world, the international exhibitions that celebrate their work have been scarce and their presence in the largest art fairs in the world – the powerful drivers of today’s artistic market – were minimal.

Yet recently there are signs that things are changing and Indian art – both modern and contemporary – is having what many on the field have described as a “main moment”. The prices of the auctions for eminent Indian artists of the 20th century have constantly recorded discs in recent years, while according to the Artsy international art broker, the demand for Indian artists has increased more than for any other nationality in 2024.

For Nishad Avari, head of modern and contemporary art of southern Asia at Christie’s in New York, the record sale of the Husain painting in March-which brought him more than a decade for orchestrare-reflecting a wider change in the recognition and at the moment around the Indian artists, who accredited himself from within India.

“In the last two years, we have seen the ecosystem for the arts in India really expand,” said Avare. “There are many new participants and a new trust that is guiding the question and many new conversations are happening, both in India and internationally. It has been all for some time waiting to be honest.”

“The world has never taken us seriously”

India experienced an art boom once before, among the first in the late 2000s, when contemporary Indian artistic prices began to be seen as investments and prices went up to the stars. Yet many considered it as a speculative bubble led by some figures who divert prices as they purchased quickly and sell works, and everything lowered themselves after the 2008 global financial crisis.

Artists, curators and gallery owners all agreed on the fact that the current environment was significantly different, in part due to the country’s new enthusiasm for our contemporary art and the growing institutional support for Indian artists.

For decades, the arts in India have suffered from a serious lack of state funding, ensuring that museums and galleries are often not not very interesting, celebrating only some modern selected artists.

But since wealth in India has grown, the number of artistic customers also. There has been a recent increase in galleries and museums that open across the country, supporting both modern masters of the 20th century of India, but also the next generation of contemporary artists. India also has its thriving art fair held every year in Delhi and a young generation of Indian art collectors has emerged with a new interest in contemporary art.

A new Museum of Art and Photography was opened in Bengaluru in 2023 and Kiran Nadar, the largest private patron of India and a collector of modern and contemporary art, will open a large museum in Delhi next year. Some of the largest billionaires of the country have recently financed the cultural centers in Mumbai and Hampi and the Royal Jaipur family has just opened a center for the arts in the City Palace.

Contemporary Indian artists described him as one of the most exciting moments for the country’s artistic scene. “Up to three or four years ago, the artistic market in India, the people in power, the institutions, the galleries and collectors did not seriously take the Indian artists as international artists did-and this meant that the world has never taken us seriously,” said Tarini Sethi, a multi-disciplinary artist who works from Delhi.

“But this has changed so much. Now there is a great push in which to invest and highlight our artists, whether they are tunnel shows in India or abroad. For the first time, collectors and galleries want to risk more recent voices.”

More than “paintings by cows and gandhi”

The sculptures and paintings of Sethi take what he described as a “maximalist approach and in the face” to the representations of sex, units and bodies of women, directly facing their continuous taboo in India. However, he recalled when he studied art in the United States that the professors would regularly criticize his job not to be “enough Indian”.

But since more contemporary Indian artists have been supported by customers and shown by domestic galleries, and consequently increasingly seen in the galleries and international art fairs, Sethi said that he was challenging clichés that the whole country had to offer were “popular art and paintings by cows and Gandhi”.

Sethi recognized that there was still a lot to do ” – recently showed his work in an art fair around Art Basel in Miami, one of the most important fairs in the art world, and was shocked in making only two Indian tunnels. “But at least we are finally seen as contenders,” he added.

This momentum has also been reflected internationally. Last year, The Barbican Center And the London Gallery Serpentina, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Pompidou in Paris have all organized important exhibitions of Indian artists, with many with works seen outside India for the first time. At the Frieze Art Fair of 2023, experimenter, a contemporary gallery that began in the Indian city of Calcutta, won the prestigious Best Stand prize for its presentation of seven intergenerational female artists.

In the United States, it was a frustration “to see all this incredible work that came out of India that was not celebrated in the West as I heard that it had to be” that led the gallery owner Rajiv Menon to open a space in Los Angeles almost mainly dedicated to South Asia artists.

Menon’s focus was to give western viewers and collectors the opportunity to see southern Asia artists in a wider context; His current show is by a Pakistani artist Nootormoh Jamal whose works reflect on his childhood growing in Peshawar. He described the response to his other exhibitions, which included works by Sethi, as “phenomenal”, with six pieces acquired by the museums within a few months.

“Many of the themes that the works in the shows have addressed – climate, migration, political precariousness – are very specific for southern Asia, but speak deeply to the human condition everywhere”, says Menon.

“It really affirmed my hypothesis that as soon as these artists have the opportunity to show in the West, they will immediately find an audience. This is only the beginning.”