01Why South Asian contemporary art matters to me
I was born in New Delhi, and I have worked across India, London and the United States. South Asian contemporary art is not a category I came to from the outside. I also sit on the Tate Modern South Asian Acquisitions Committee, though what follows is my own view and not the committee's.
My view is simple: collectors who approach the region through a handful of famous names are missing most of it. The region is several countries, many languages and a large diaspora, and the most interesting work often sits between those places rather than inside any one of them.
I also think the category is sometimes used too loosely. An artist's biography does not make their work about the region, and an artist working far from it may address it more directly than someone who never left. When I recommend South Asian contemporary art, I am looking for work that engages with the region's materials, histories or questions, whatever passport the artist holds.
Start with the material: Subodh Gupta and Anish Kapoor
Subodh Gupta builds monumental sculpture from steel tiffin tins and everyday kitchen utensils. For anyone who grew up in an Indian household, those objects carry meals, routines, migration and class before they carry anything else. The scale turns the domestic into something civic, and that shift is the point.
Anish Kapoor, who is British-Indian, is a sculptor of voids, raw pigment and reflective surface, working at both intimate and civic scale. His work is often discussed in purely formal terms, and it rewards that reading. But I think it is worth noticing how often artists from the region make material itself carry meaning, rather than treating it as a means to an image.
That is my first piece of advice for collectors new to the region: read the material first. It usually tells you more than the title.
The body and the ornament: Bharti Kher and Raqib Shaw
Bharti Kher, who is British-Indian, works with bindis, body casts and hybrid figures, holding the body between the domestic and the mythic. The bindi is an everyday object loaded with ideas about femininity, devotion and adornment, and Kher uses it in a way that keeps those ideas unsettled.
Raqib Shaw, who is Indian-British, makes jewel-encrusted, hyper-detailed paintings that draw on Kashmiri, Renaissance and Persian sources at once. Ornament in his work is not decoration applied to a subject. It is the subject.
Together they show how differently two artists can draw on a shared inheritance. Kher takes an object from daily life and makes it strange; Shaw gathers sources from several traditions and pushes ornament to the point of excess.
Both practices remind me that complex surfaces need care. When I consider work like this for a client, I ask detailed questions about materials, fixatives and how the surface should be handled, lit and cleaned. Those answers matter as much as the provenance.
The diaspora is part of the region
Salman Toor, who is Pakistani, paints green-toned interiors of queer South Asian and diasporic life in New York. His work is a good example of why I do not think South Asian art should be defined by where it is made. Some of the most searching work about the region is being made far away from it.
The same applies to the countries collectors tend to overlook. In my experience much of the market conversation centres on India, but artists from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal are making work that deserves the same attention, and diaspora communities in London, New York and elsewhere connect all of them.
London matters here in particular. It has long been one of the centres of South Asian art outside the region, and many of the conversations about this work that I value most happen there.
I find this is where collections become distinctive. Two collectors can own work by the same well-known names; the ones who have looked across the whole region end up with something that could not have been assembled from a single sale catalogue.
Where I think collectors should look
If I were building a South Asian collection from nothing, these are the places I would spend my time.
- Artists from across the region, not only India, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal
- Diaspora practices in London, New York and the Gulf, which often speak most directly about movement and belonging
- Material-led work in textile, metal, clay and domestic objects, which has too often been read as craft rather than art
- Works on paper and drawings by established artists, which let you live with the thinking behind the larger pieces
- Exhibitions and art weeks within the region itself, where you see work in the context it answers to
- The modern masters, as context even if you never buy them, because the contemporary generation is in constant dialogue with them
What I am careful about
Authenticity has been a recurring concern in the market for modern South Asian art, so for any older work I want an unbroken paper trail and, where possible, the view of a recognised specialist. For contemporary work bought from the artist's gallery the risk is lower, but documentation still matters.
Some countries in the region restrict the export of older works and designated art treasures. I would never move anything of age across a border without specialist and legal advice on what is permitted, and I recommend the same to anyone.
I am also careful with comparisons. Results for South Asian art can differ between sales held in the region and those held in London or New York, and between modern and contemporary categories. Before a client relies on any comparable, I make sure they understand which market it comes from and why it may or may not apply.
The last caution is about taste. It is easy to buy South Asian art for what it signals: the colour, the ornament, the familiar motif. I would rather my clients buy the work that changes how they see the region, even if it is quieter on the wall.
