Delhi Contemporary Art Week & Histories in the Making (1855-1920) photography exhibition: 7 must-see artworks in central Delhi this weekend

Hand-embroidered artwork by Viraj Khanna, whose work is on show at the 7th Delhi Contemporary Art Week; and 'Part of the pillar at Kootub (Qutub Minar)' (1858) taken by the celebrated photographer Felice Beato can be seen at DAG. (Images courtesy DCAW and DAG)

As the weather cools in the northern hemisphere, Delhi's arts calendar starts to heat up. This weekend is a case in point: two new exhibitions in central Delhi offer interesting counterpoints. The first, DCAW or Delhi Contemporary Art Week, showcases 21st century artworks. It opened to the public on Saturday (August 31), as did the photography exhibition 'Histories in the Making: Photographing Indian Monuments, 1855-1920' at DAG.

DCAW is on at Bikaner House, on India Gate C-hexagon, and represents artists working with six Delhi galleries. Roughly 2km away on Janpath Road, DAG gallery of modern art's photography exhibition showcases pictures of monuments and places in Delhi, Sanchi, Kashmir, Seringapatnam (now Srirangapatna), Madurai, Hyderabad, among other cities, in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Samuel Bourne & Charles Shepherd's 'Mount Abu, Interior of Jain Temple', Silver albumen print on paper, c. 1870. (Image courtesy DAG)

There is enough content here to spend a pleasant afternoon across the two venues, but if you wish to do a whirlwind tour, see these seven exhibits:

1. Postcards from Chandni Chowk, circa 1900-30

At the turn of the 20th century, HA Mirza & Sons in purani dilli became known for its postcards of hill stations and north Indian monuments. The DAG exhibition has a series of HA Mirza coloured collotype and halftone—expensive colour-printing technologies of the time—postcards depicting structures like the Kirti Stambha in Udaipur and the Husainabad Garden in Lucknow. The postcards, published in Germany, stand out for a number of reasons. Not least because the colours pop, in a retro coloured-daguerreotype kind of way. The postcards also evoke fantasies of who might have sent them to whom, which parts of the world did they originate and where were they sent, and what the receivers thought of the monuments pictured, especially if they had never travelled or seen something like them before. (A book by DAG on the show and show themes explains that Mirza was also one of the key photographers of the Delhi Darbar in 1903, but those photos aren't included here.)

2. Tripe in Madurai

An army man, Linneaus Tripe came to India as a 17-year-old in 1839. Nearly 20 years on, in 1857, he was appointed photographer of the Madras Presidency. He travelled to Madurai, Srirangampatna, Tiruchirapalli and Thanjavur, among other parts of the presidency, making pictures—some of which are in this show. Don't miss his pictures of the Meenakshi temple in Madurai.

Linnaeus Tripe's 'The Great Pagoda Jewels (Minakshi Sundareshvara Temple, Madurai)'; silver albumen print from dry collodion on glass negative mounted on paper, 1858; print size: 8.5 x 11.7 in.; paper size: 12.0 x 14.5 in. (Image courtesy DAG)

3. Survey of India

James Waterhouse lived in India for nearly 40 years, between 1859 and 1897. He is said to have taken the earliest photos of the Buddhist monuments at Sanchi, some of them having been excavated by a very new Archaeological Survey of India. Some of these photos are now lost, but Waterhouse visited the Madhya Pradesh site again—some of these photos as well a book they were published in, 'Tree and Serpent Worship, or Illustrations of Mythology and Art in India in the First and Fourth Centuries after Christ', are on display here.

Copy of 'Tree and Serpent Worship'.

4. MF Husain's photos of south films paraphernalia

Vadehra Art Gallery, one of the six participating galleries at DCAW, is showing 10 silver gelatin prints depicting billboards and graffiti for south films. MF Husain made these photos in the 1980s. The collection is evocatively titled 'Culture of the Street'.

'Culture of the Street', by MF Husain.

5. Message hidden in plain sight

Among the textiles-based artworks in curator Mayank Mansingh Kaul's 'Threads that Bare' selection at DCAW is a patchwork quilt by Udita Upadhyay. Titled 'In the Air', the 59 x 59 inch work pulls you in with its barely visible text. Here's what it says:

Udita Upadhyay's 'In the Air' (59 x 59 inch); and on the right, the same work edited to highlight the writing.

6. Shailesh BR's curated worlds

Also presented by Vadehra Art, Shailesh BR's layered textual works are like a conversation the artists is having with himself. Bits of text share space with found objects. In a work titled 'Garden', for example, he's got entire passages; a sort of stream of consciousness narration of what's in his head. The art piece depicts a garden that he writes, on the canvas, is visible from his studio. Towards the bottom of this frame, there's a frog. In a note next to the frog, he tells us his basement studio can sometimes get inundated in heavy rains. When this happens, it's possible for a small frog to get in. However, the frog that he's painted here might have been born in the studio - whatever the case may be, the frog did inspire him to make the work. In the last segment of this story - paraphrased here, for brevity - he addresses the viewers directly: "I know you didn't read full thing/Also there is lots of splling and gramer mistakes.../But if you read, you will understand for sure."

Whether you choose to see this as a comment on the point of language - even when it's riddled with grammatical and spelling mistakes, so long as you understand, it works - or an artist finding a way to start a conversation with the viewer through the canvas, or simply the artist's quest to draw the best frog ever, is up to you. The work is whimsical, colourful and pulls you in as much with its narrative.

Shailesh BR's 'Garden' (2024; 60 x 40 inch), and detail from 'Garden', at DCAW.

7. Hand-embroidered art

One of 2024's Forbes 30 under 30, Viraj Khanna is the son of fashion designer Anamika Khanna. Viraj uses hand-embroidery to depict life in the age of social media. In the two 33 x 24.5 inch frames on display at DCAW (Viraj is represented by Latitude28), we see a group of friends clicking the sunset on their phones and a coach wielding a bat menacingly at an athlete lifting free weights. The works are titled 'The View From My Phone is Better', and 'Listen to Your Teachers', respectively.

Viraj Khanna's 'The View From My Phone is Better' (left), and 'Listen to Your Teachers'.