Shreya Ajmani

This Dubai Collector Is Amassing an Impressive Collection of Rising South Asian Artists

Ahmed’s collection captures a generation of South Asian artists at a moment of extraordinary international visibility. But its real strength lies in the quieter years before that visibility arrived. Her collection is not only a record of where South Asian art is now, but of the artists she chose to believe in before the wider world caught up.

Provenance and Presence: London Gallery Weekend 2026

The South Asian art scene in London resists easy characterisation. The Gallery Weekend brought that into focus: across Mayfair and Bloomsbury, in the rooms of Bonhams and Christie’s, and in the city’s more established presences.

Furies Unbound: Nalini Malani’s “Of Woman Born” in Venice

Shadows swallow sight, but my ears find their way to a hall taken over by Nalini Malani. Her voice reverberates through the long, cavernous space of the ​Magazzini del Sale in Venice, at one point proclaiming vehemently, “The lust for power never dies.” The interior flashes with red and white light as semi-distorted, spectral figures continuously emerge and disappear, from close-ups of adult faces with wide eyes to scrawled silhouettes of children dancing, skipping, standing still, collapsing. Even as they flit from wall to wall, their presence is steadfast and hypnotic, accompanied by incisive quotes drawn from various literary sources, projected onto the chipped-brick surfaces: “Remember us—if at all—not as lost violent souls, but only as the hollow men”; “Hatred is a master of contrast / Above all it never tires”; “Who will ask the women?” Another quote, all in block letters, reads: “OUR POWER STRIPPED / CAST OFF.” 

This artist from Mumbai paints Bollywood’s most iconic characters back to life

Maithili Chaturvedi’s studio sits inside Wankhede Stadium. On match days, crowds stream through the complex for cricket games while, somewhere between and beyond the noise, the 23-year-old painter labours over her portraits from the golden era of Hindi cinema. “I walk around throngs of people, and no one knows I’m not going to watch the match,” she says. “I’m just going to paint.”​

10 South Asian Artists with Market Momentum

South Asian art is at a global inflection point.

Record-breaking prices at auction, major institutional acquisitions, landmark retrospectives, and a collector base that is both more geographically dispersed and generationally diverse than at any prior moment—the breadth of this momentum is what distinguishes this current moment.

History & Now: Dr Amin Jaffer on the Pavilion of India at the 61st La Biennale di Venezia

Amin Jaffer’s relationship with art began at six years old, when he walked through the Louvre with a camera. He photographed the Raft of the Medusa, the Coronation of Napoleon, the Winged Victory, and the black basalt Egyptian sculptures, to which he returned more than once. Whatever it was that drew him to those particular works, it appears never to have loosened its hold. Born in Rwanda to an Indian business family, Jaffer spent a decade at the Victoria & Albert Museum and another as International Director of Asian Art at Christie’s, before becoming Director of the Al Thani Collection and overseeing the creation of its critically acclaimed museum at the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris in 2021. Now, as curator of the Pavilion of India at the 61st La Biennale di Venezia 2026, he arrives at the world’s foremost international exhibition with rare scholarly depth and a sensibility that preceded it all.

Interview with Dr Amin Jaffer in the April-May issue for Harper's Bazaar India.

Written Across the Sky: Hong Kong Art Week 2026

Artists illuminate histories, bodies, and knowledge systems that stretch from Victoria Harbour to Art Basel Hong Kong.

5 Artists to Look Out For at the Thailand Biennale Phuket 2025

Blue coiffed hair, a ballgown, and cocktail gloves—Mademoiselle MIMOSA, the alter ego of Oat Montien, opened Thailand Biennale Phuket 2025 with an animated performance of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”. The theatrical vernissage set the tone for a biennale that oscillates between spectacle and historical reflection.

Art in the Wild: Inside Thailand's Khao Yai Art Forest

“A figure emerges through the fog, still cloaked in the haziness of the atmosphere. He is Stefano Rabolli Pansera, founding director of Khao Yai Art Forest and Bangkok Kunsthalle, and the architect behind this artscape. The fog, created by artist Fujiko Nakaya, is a pioneering work in the realm of temporal sculpture.” continued in the March Issue of Harper’s Bazaar India.

In conversation with Marisa Chearavanont and Stefano Rabolli Pansera about the Khao Yai Art Forest.

Of Play & Power: Ai Weiwei takes us through his first show in India

Asked how he would describe the exhibition to an Indian audience, Ai avoids abstraction. “I hope that when they see these artworks, they may sometimes laugh and sometimes contemplate,” he shares. The desired response is neither reverence nor agreement, but fluctuation, between humour and reflection. “And afterward,” he adds, “I would like them to return home and enjoy delicate Indian food.”

Excerpt from Ai Weiwei's interview for Harper's Bazaar India.

Time as Witness: Ai Weiwei at Nature Morte

For his solo debut in India, the Chinese artist extended his long-running investigations of history and spectacle, activism and commodification into the local context.

Durability in the Global Circuit: India Art Fair 2026

On February 5, India Art Fair (IAF) opened its 17th edition in New Delhi with a measured confidence that reflected the event’s growing institutional maturity and international standing. With a record 135 exhibitors, IAF marked its largest iteration to date. Visitor flow remained steady on opening day, with relaxed entries and movement across the tents gaining further momentum by midday. Established galleries drew their long-standing clientele early on, while a notable contingent of VIP collectors arriving from Art Basel Qatar highlighted an increasingly interconnected global art calendar. Two Indian galleries, Chemould Prescott Road and Nature Morte, participated in both fairs this year. Fair director Jaya Asokan noted: “International attention on South Asian art has reached an inflection point, and [IAF] meets that moment.”

Indian Art Collector and Netflix Star Shalini Passi Shares Her Impeccable Collection

​While her collection spans Indian modernists such as M.F. Husain and contemporary artists Bharti Kher and Sheba Chhachhi, Passi traces her earliest relationship with art to spaces far removed from the gallery. “My earliest interactions with art were through temples, architecture, and the visual richness of Indian homes—not museums,” she said. “As a child, I was drawn to colors, textures, and sacred imagery. I learned to feel art before analyzing it. That instinctive relationship has stayed with me. Art has always felt alive rather than decorative.”​

Excerpt from Shalini Passi's interview for Artsy.

Anjali Kasturi Takes Us Behind a Door That Forgot Where It Led

It’s snowing outside in Montreal, but inside her warm studio is artist Anjali Kasturi, recalling faint memories of her life as she holds her brush over a tiny canvas. In her recent solo exhibition at Indigo+Madder, Lamina, she lets us behind the veil, revealing “impressions of vanished interiors: a door that forgot where it led, a ribcage where the map once was,” according to her self-written exhibition text. Her delicate and fluid compositions speak to something fragile yet unmistakable—something viewers recognize yet might struggle to manifest into language. She lends a tangibility to her works, creating creeping roots akin to human finger bones crawling on the edges of the canvas, trying to grasp faint memories, which may as well be dreams—indistinguishable visions of recognition or fantasy as we grapple with our day-to-day life in the unrelenting face of time.

Text by Shreya Ajmani for Impulse Magazine.