New Delhi’s January art season unfolds through these exhibitions exploring the body, craft, memory and political histories.
Step into a gallery in New Delhi this January and a pattern begins to emerge. Artists are returning to what is held in the hand and carried in the body, working with clay, cloth, paper and found materials to tell stories of origin, belief, and place. Some look to inherited traditions, others to personal histories, but all are attentive to how meaning is shaped through making. These exhibitions trace that shared concern, offering a thoughtful snapshot of the ideas circulating in the city’s art spaces right now.
Rewriting Origins, Kalakriti Art Gallery , IILM Center for Arts and Ideas
Curated by Satyajit Dave, Origin Story 2.0 expands the idea of beginnings beyond a single point in time. Instead, the exhibition frames origin as a process—one that repeats, mutates, and resurfaces through material, craft, and everyday systems of making. Featuring works by 38 emerging and mid-career artists, including Ankon Mitra, R. Balasubramanian, Jignesh Panchal, Sumit Sarkar, and Viraj Khanna, the show foregrounds material memory...coins, measurements, tools and craft traditions as foundational technologies. These elements reappear in contemporary form, not as nostalgia, but as enquiry. The exhibition is particularly attentive to process: how repetition becomes knowledge, how making becomes thinking, and how cultural memory quietly shapes contemporary expression. Designed with young and new collectors in mind, Origin Story 2.0 balances conceptual rigour with accessibility, making it one of the most thoughtful group shows of the season.