Exhibition · Art Intelligence Global · Hong Kong
Art Intelligence Global is pleased to announce Significant Form, opening at our Hong Kong gallery on 17 September 2026. The exhibition marks the most significant presentation of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art staged in Hong Kong to date. Co-curated by Adeline Ooi, formerly Director Asia for Art Basel, and produced in collaboration with three of Mumbai’s leading galleries – Chemould Prescott Road, Jhaveri Contemporary, and TARQ – this group exhibition brings together the work of eleven artists, spanning from the post-Independence period through to the present day. South Asia is a region of profound cultural, national, ethnic, and linguistic complexity, shaped by traditions that have long coexisted in productive tension. Nearly two centuries of British rule and colonial influence imposed new political and social structures before the seismic events of 1947 brought both triumph and tragedy: the end of colonial rule and the emergence of independent nations arrived alongside Partition, one of the largest and most violent mass migrations in history. For artists coming of age in the ensuing years, the pain and questions raised by Partition became defining experiences. A highlight of the exhibition, an exceptionally rare complete set of twenty-six photographs by Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–1990) documents her exploration of form and structure as a means of considering cultural hybridity, shared experience, and spirituality against a backdrop of national and ethnic division. Likewise, a group of late paper collages by Zarina (1937– 2020) evoke the pain of displacement but also offer a path towards healing and regeneration. After Independence, South Asian artists faced a further challenge: developing forms of expression capable of asserting new national and personal identities, while resisting accusations of derivation from a Western modernism often defined against the supposed stasis of colonized nations. Many artists who traveled to Europe in the decades following…