Unfolding Narratives with Sakshi Gallery

Geetha Mehra opened her first gallery in 1986, in Chennai, and then in Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and eventually Taipei, before everything was drawn back into a single Bombay address. Offsite, the exhibitions kept travelling: Delhi, Hong Kong, London, and the art fair circuit. Four decades on, a new show in London revisits the cities of significance at a moment when South Asian art is having an overdue moment in the West, with Christies London also hosting the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art’s emblematic pieces until the 21st August. Geetha has been watching this room fill up for a long time.

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Why a show in London specifically, and why now, when everyone seems to be engaging with South Asian art at once?

London has always been a meeting point. So many Indian families have had a second home here - the cricket matches, Wimbledon, the summer migrations, the whole rhythm of it. However, auction houses are now taking the lead in reconnecting people. With The India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) reduced or zero duties have made London a very attractive proposition, and increasingly the centre for Indian art.

What kind of exhibition space do you actually prefer working in?

I like well curated exhibitions, whether in private spaces or public. Art fairs are essential; they have their own dynamics, and I understand why they exist, but I'm not the biggest fan of everything colliding with everything. I prefer a calmer, standalone viewing experience. Something cohesive, where the work is in conversation with itself rather than competing for oxygen with the booth next door.

You've represented some of these artists for decades. What does that relationship actually look like, day to day?

We exhibited Ravinder Reddy solo in the mid-eighties. Surendran Nair had an early solo show with us. We've worked with Manjunath for a long time. Rekha, for thirty-five years now. These are enduring relationships - we've essentially grown up together. I go to their studios as often as I can. There's a real joy in seeing them gain international recognition. It's a symbiotic engagement with each artist we work with.

And your appetite for younger artists - is there still room for that kind of long game?

Very much so. There's a real energy right now from younger artists (and curators) doing their first solos, and we've onboarded several young artists. New energy and renewal matter. It's fascinating to watch a practice evolve and mature. It takes a certain liberal, self-assured personality to take that plunge with someone young - you're betting on where they're going, not just where they are.

Do European collectors approach Indian contemporary art differently than diaspora buyers do?

Europe has an extraordinarily long history with art. From Michelangelo through to Dadaism and beyond. Europeans have grown up inside that art history, so they approach every new wave with a certain maturity, experiencing less of the shock that can accompany it elsewhere. Our own touchstone is really a Ravi Varma, we don't have a great deal to refer back to as a benchmark in contemporary art... we're really only looking at about a hundred years. Our collective viewership has been limited; we haven't been exposed to a wide range of ideologies in the way that longer art histories allow. Our traditional arts have been so strong- the bronzes, the stone carving, the miniature paintings, temple architecture - it's the highest form of art, and largely as something to continue from rather than to depart from. Pakistan did this well with the miniature painting tradition, straddling the miniature tradition and bringing it convincingly into the present. We haven't reinterpreted our own inheritance in quite the same way, or made truly contemporary versions of it. But it's happening…

Your artists sit in the V&A, LACMA, Detroit, the Kiran Nadar Museum, MAP. Is institutional acquisition in the West currently moving faster than private collector demand, or is the gallery still doing the slower work of building individual buyers? 

Institutional buying of Indian contemporary art in the West, is currently moving faster than individual buying, though the auction houses are indicating that interest among private collectors is growing too. It's coming, just on its own timeline. We have a major institutional exhibition planned in London in 2027. The last exhibition I did of that scale was at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, before that the NGMA in Delhi, in Bombay and in Bangalore.