For the month of March, the art shows in Mumbai span a global street art icon’s first solo art exhibition in India, exhibits of unique sculpture and design objects, and more. Mumbai’s galleries are serving an exciting variety of shows this season, and here are some of our selections of shows you must visit.
Follow the Bunny at Gallery XXL
Brooklyn-based Japanese street artist AIKO first created her signature bunny figure in 2005, spray painting the form in artist Banksy’s London studio. The artist has since created multiple renditions of the figure across the globe, following her travels around cities such as Amsterdam, Istanbul, Saigon, Berlin, Johannesburg, Soweto, Copenhagen, Fukushima, Vienna, Dubai, Shanghai and Miami. Follow the Bunny, her first solo exhibition in India, on display at Gallery XXL, brings together a vibrant selection of the artist’s works including newly developed canvases, sculptures, a selection of photographs of AIKO’s works clicked by Martha Cooper, textiles, and found objects that AIKO collected while wandering in the city of Mumbai.
Blooming At the End of The World at Akara Contemporary
Juxtaposing discarded automobile components with origami-like folded paper of various colours, Keita Miyazaki’s pieces have an otherworldly quality. On show at Akara Contemporary is the Japanese artist’s first solo show in India, Blooming At the End of The World. “Miyazaki’s practice merges Utopia and dystopia in an almost magical manner,” notes Puneet Shah, Director of Akara Contemporary. “He assembles car parts with multi-coloured paper flowers. The car symbolises capitalism, industrial progress and mass production, whereas the flowers symbolise vegetation, renewal and the inevitability of life.”
Off Margins: Miniatures in the Postmodern at Art and Charlie
Curated by Khushboo Jain, this art exhibition at Art and Charlie, Bandra, brings together a selection of artworks by eight artists from across India, whose practices draw from miniature painting techniques. Participating artists Arslan Farooqi, Divya Pamnani, Gargi Chandola, Laxmipriya Panigrahi, Lekha Shastry, Pavan Kavitkar, Ravi Kumar Chaurasiya and Sukanya Ayde experiment with the techniques, materials, iconographies and narratives associated with miniature painting, creating unique new iterations of the traditional art form.