Contemporary Now Edition III

Contemporary Now — Chennai 2026 is the third edition of Contemporary Now, bringing together leading contemporary galleries, artists, collectors, and cultural programming in Chennai. Hosted at Lalit Kala Akademi across the ground and first floors, this edition expands the platform into a more ambitious presentation of contemporary artistic practices, collector engagement, and gallery collaboration.

Practices in Continuum: Tracing the Present Every collection begins with a moment of looking. Yet meaningful collecting begins with understanding. Contemporary Now · Edition III invites collectors to look beyond the artwork as an individual object and encounter the larger practice from which it emerges. Bringing together 66 artists across seven leading galleries, the exhibition is built around continuity: of gallery programmes, artistic inquiry and evolving bodies of work. Each artwork is presented not in isolation, but as part of a wider conversation that has been shaped over years of research, experimentation and curatorial commitment. Here, the gallery becomes the first point of context, offering a lens through which an artist's practice can be understood. From there, the artwork unfolds as an expression of larger questions: of memory and migration, ecology and materiality, politics and identity, language and lived experience. To collect such a work is to collect more than an image or an object; it is to engage with an artist's way of thinking and with the ideas that define our present. "Contemporary Now is not only an exhibition; it is a learning structure. It invites audiences to move from the gallery program to the artist's voice, from the artist's voice to the artwork, and from the artwork to the larger world it reflects." – Priyanjoli Basu, Director, Contemporary Now Whether experienced by a first-time visitor, a student, an artist or a collector, the exhibition offers an invitation to look more closely, to think more deeply, and to recognise contemporary art as an evolving record of the times we inhabit. Priyanjoli Basu Director, Contemporary Now Ashvin E. Rajagopalan Director, Contemporary Now Vikramaditya Rathi Director, Contemporary Now