They say India exists in many centuries. Always has and perhaps always will. A land of contrasting histories, divergent social hierarchies, convergent cultural moorings. A confluence of polarities in a constant state of flux. Some call it a salad, some call it a curry. We know the borders but where is its centre? Can it be located in time and space? Does it oscillate within the weaves and waft of its diversity of cultures, histories, religions? Or perhaps, does it exist only in thought and spirit. Whose thought and whose spirit?

Some call it a nation, some view it as a notion. A figment of many realities, a construct of many perceptions. Perhaps…just a glorified deception. An enigma that has lent fodder to both the critic and the bard....it is now projecting its voice through the resurgence of contemporary art.

While the snake continues to be charmed…by perceptions frozen in time, India perhaps has moved on…to another canvas in good old home town. Let the story unfold from the inside, looking out…. there is a new light shining on the jewel in the crown.

For years it has been called the land of the holy cow. The artists now make us ponder... what is truly holy now. ‘Holy Now’ brings together works by 18 Indian artists whose work engages with the emergent realities of India within a multilayered historicity. Each work in this show holds the promise of becoming a defining marker of what we today view as the Indian contemporary art movement.

This is Religare Arts Initiative’s first show in the city of London. 

Artists:

Artists:Anant Mishra | Arijoy Bhattacharya | Baba Anand |Daina Mohapatra |Farhad Hussain|Gagandeep Singh | Jenson Anto | Julius Macwan | Jyoti Ranjan Jena | Meghansh Thapa|Mukesh Sharma | Pradosh Swain | Preeti Varma | Rajesh Patil | Sanjay Bhattacharya|Seema Kohli | Sidharth | Viren Tanwar