Mumbai Gallery Weekend: Here are art exhibitions you definitely cannot miss

Untitled, Chippa Sudhakar, mixed media on wood. Pic Courtesy/artist; Tao Art Gallery

It is time when the high of the first week slowly fades, and the city begins to slowly move through the gears. For galleries across Mumbai, though, this is the time of the year to celebrate. The 14th edition of the Mumbai Gallery Weekend will see galleries open doors on Thursday for a four-day run to celebrate their first, and often best, shows of the year. With the four-day event featuring 33 galleries and six parallel art spaces, we pick the exhibitions that have to be on your itinerary for 2026.

Dissolving Caves, 2025, Prabhakar Pachpute. Pic Courtesy/artist, Experimenter Colaba

Los Angeles canvas

Kelly Weartsler's curation, By Fire brings to the city two collections shaped by her interactions with Indian artisans over multiple workshops through two collections, Lahar and Tarang.
AT Aequo Gallery, Devidas Mansion, behind Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Colaba.

Memory collective

Terracotta and canvas becomes the medium for Chippa Sudhakar's tale of rural and urban co-existence, the impact of development on collective experience, and memory as an evolving landscape.
FROM January 8 to February 12
AT Tao Art Gallery, The View, Dr Annie Besant Road, Worli.

Character sketches

Prabhakar Pachpute's examinations of the very current conflict of mining on natural and human lives find expression through Lone Runner's Laboratory, a close reflection of characters who have informed his landscapes.
FROM January 8 to February 21
AT Experimenter Colaba, Sunny House, Apollo Bunder, Colaba.

Rule of eleven

Dialogue, Lalitha Lajmi, etched on print. Pic courtesy/Artist, Art and Soul Gallery

With Brinda Miller, Jayasri Burman, and the late Lalitha Lajmi, this show - WomanGrove-Scapes of Still & Life - features 11 contemporary women artists of Indian art,
FROM January 8
AT Art & Soul Gallery, Madhuli 1, Dr Annie Besant Road, Worli.

Many faces of Mumbai

Bal Gandharva, MV Dhurandhar, 1941. Pic Courtesy/DAG

From Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar to the first Baronet of India, Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy, or the common street vendors of early colonial Bombay, DAG's Face to Face: A portrait of a City captures the evolution of portraiture from academics to modern experimentation.
FROM January 8 to 11
AT DAG, The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Colaba.

Life in the city

The hustle of Mumbai's daily life finds new form in Ranjit Kandalgaonkar's cityinflux, that documents the in-between spaces of the city.
FROM January 8 till February 14
AT Fulcrum, Great Western Building, Kala Ghoda, Fort.

Eye on the lens

Untitled, 1974-75, Jyoti Bhatt. Pic Courtesy/artist, SubContinent

This show turns the spotlight back on Jyoti Bhatt, one of India's most influential photographers and artists, with a series of black-and-white silver gelatin prints from the 1960s to 1980s.
FROM January 8 to February 21 AT Subcontinent, A3, Apeejay Chambers, Wallace Street, Fort.

Return of the native

After a hiatus of eight years, Mithu Sen returns with her new exhibition, What Do Birds Dream At Dusk?, a series of mixed-media works that explore blindness as a political condition. .
FROM January 8 to February 21
AT Chemould Prescott Road, Queens Mansion, Fort.

Also check out

>> Prakalpana & Rachana
AT Strangers House Gallery, old Wodehouse Road, Colaba.

>> The Fourth Wall
AT Sakshi Gallery, 3rd Pasta Lane, Colaba.

>> Azal se Abad Tak: A journey between two eternities
AT Chatterjee & Lal, 3rd Floor, HC Dinshaw Building, Colaba.

Attend this talk

Mapping Home: South Asia and Global Perspectives
At Godrej Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point.
Log on to @stir_world (for registration details)