India’s contemporary art scene is increasingly shaped by conversations that move beyond the art market’s familiar centres and towards archives, collective memory, ecological and regional histories, and deeply personal practices. The five exhibitions listed here reflect that expansive moment: from landmark archives to emerging and established artists working across painting, photography, sculpture, textile and sound. These five exhibitions across Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata represent how artists and galleries are creating space for more layered, pluralistic, and urgent ways of seeing in India.

‘Princes & People of India: Portraits by Emily Eden’, presented by DAG, is a landmark exhibition revisiting one of the most remarkable visual records of 19th-century India. Bringing together the complete Eden Family Archives — a series of twenty-four hand-coloured lithographs produced in 1844 — and rare Lahore Company School paintings, the exhibition explores Emily Eden’s encounters with rulers, courtiers, warriors, attendants and communities during her travels across northern India. Curated by Mary Ann Prior, the exhibition offers parallel British and Indian perspectives on a period of political change, including portraits linked to Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s court. On view from 10th July to 1st August at 22A Windsor Place, Janpath, New Delhi. Learn more here.

Art Alive presents ‘Shots in the Dark’, a solo exhibition by Chandra Bhattacharjee, featuring large-scale charcoal drawings and watercolours. Drawing on his experience as a Calcutta hoarding painter in the 1980s, Bhattacharjee observes street dwellers, workers and neighbourhood characters who quietly shape the urban landscape. His monochrome figures, often suspended between anonymity and visibility, command attention through their presence and dignity. The exhibition invites viewers to pause, look beyond the visible, and recognise the oft-ignored lives and stories that sustain the fabric of society. On view from 18 to 24 July 2026 at Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam and continue at Art Alive Gallery from 1 to 20 August, 2026.

Experimenter presents ‘Grid for a Disappearance’, Biraaj Dodiya’s solo exhibition of painted steel sculptures, photographs and oil paintings on linen. Dodiya layers pigment, gauze, wood and archival images across steel frames, evoking bed headboards, stretchers, gates and barricades. Using automotive body filler as a material of repair, she retains rather than conceals signs of impact, vulnerability and transformation. Bodies remain absent but palpable, while oblique photographs punctuate the installations like fragments of evidence. The exhibition considers collapse, care, and the ways injury opens toward possibility, asking viewers to look as meanings remain unsettled. On view from 16 July to 19 September 2026 at Experimenter – Ballygunge Place, Kolkata.

‘Wedding Season | आप किसकी तरफ से?’, presented by Art + Charlie, is Aksh Diwan Garg’s debut solo exhibition. Through oil paintings alive with the sparkle of sequins, chiffon, and knowing side-eyes, Garg turns the Indian wedding into a stage for its overlooked protagonists: mausis, mehendi, baraats and the commentary that accompanies every celebration. Moving beyond the glamour, the works observe rituals, performances and intimate tensions that unfold at these gatherings. Curated by Mihir Thakkar, ‘Wedding Season’ asks a pointed question: who gets invited to love? The exhibition offers a perspective from the room’s corner, where the performative grandeur and kinship of the great Indian wedding meet an artist’s gaze. On view from 4 July to 8 August 2026 at Art + Charlie, 71A Pali Village, Mumbai. Learn more here.

Exhibit320 presents ‘MOOL’, a group exhibition curated by Shaleen Wadhwana, bringing together twenty South Asian artists to consider how belonging is shaped through personal artefacts, archives and lived histories beyond national borders. Across painting, textile, sculpture, photography, weaving and sound, the exhibition follows four strands: chosen and inherited family; emotional cartography; the body and its object biographies; and home in script. Highlights include reunited works from Mahwish Chishty and Gunjan Chawla Kumar’s ‘The Sindhu Project’, alongside artists’ family objects shown publicly for the first time. On view from 6 to 13 August 2026, Bikaner House, New Delhi.

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