If you’re visiting Mumbai for Art Mumbai 2025 at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse or just happen to be in the city right now, I urge you to make time for some of the city’s many delightful galleries.
The fair is a great choice if you are keen to buy or just want to whizz through. But if you’re not a potential buyer and crowds make you dizzy, the best place to see art during an art fair is in the city’s galleries.
Mumbai has always had a very strong network of art galleries, and the art buyer here is experimental, art-literate and committed. Also, when there’s a commercial fair on, with patrons flying in from around the world, it creates the perfect landscape for unforgettable shows.
Amol K Patil’s show at Project88
Double impact
As a viewer, I find fairs tricky, because they are visually noisy. On the other hand, in a gallery, you have the capacity to sit down and absorb the works. I just did a round of several openings on Tuesday, November 11, two days before the second edition of Art Mumbai opened and can confirm that many city galleries had their work cut out for them: they opened a show at their space and simultaneously showed at the fair.
Sri Lankan artist Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah’s show at Experimenter Colaba
I go to an opening first for the gallerist, then revisit an exhibition for myself, so I can pay attention. If you are visiting the fair, do your homework to understand who is going to be showing and avoid the cacophony. Read on for my art crawl itinerary (I still missed a few but this is a start):
1. I started with the ceramics curation at the House of Mahendra Doshi. He is a custodian of antiques and The Ceramics Salon, Edition 1, is a great collaboration of contemporary ceramics and his antique pieces. Till November 23.
The Ceramics Salon, Edition 1
2. Talking about ceramics, there is a really beautiful, meditative selection of pieces by Korean-American artist Jane Yang-D’Haene at Nilaya Anthology. Her debut show in India, The Place That Waited, presents clay as “both collaborator and canvas”.
Jane Yang-D’Haene at Nilaya Anthology
3. One of my favourite contemporary artists, Amol K. Patil, is showing at Project 88. It is a very small selection of paintings and bronzes, and worth a visit.
Amol K. Patil at Project 88
4. At Aequo, Dutch artist Inderjeet Sandhu has ephemeral oyster shell pieces that he’s worked on with two collaborative shell artisans, Kinkar Ghosh and his nephew, Souvik Roy.
Inderjeet Sandhu at Aequo
5. Another one of my favourites is Sri Lanka-born Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran who is visiting from Australia for his biggest solo yet in Mumbai at Jhaveri Contemporary. The gallery, if you have been there before, now has this explosive new personality for Mario’s show and is worth a visit.
Ramesh Mario at Jhaveri Contemporary
Ramesh Mario’ Self Portrait with Green T-Shirt
6. And last but not the least, multidisciplinary Sri Lankan artist Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah is showing at Experimenter Colaba. This beautiful web-like installation is memorable.
Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah at Experimenter Colaba
Meanwhile, if you do make it to the fair, drop by KNMA’s showcase of the inimitable Tyeb Mehta. Bearing Weight (with the lightness of being) is not for sale, of course, but his most celebrated series is worth seeing up close, alongside some of his rarely seen early drawings and paintings.
Manju Sara Rajan is co-founder of Bengaluru design gallery KAASH.
Published – November 14, 2025 09:29 pm IST
