The 14th Cosmoscow Art Fair: Why Indian Art? Why Now?
By Elena Rubinova
The 14th edition of Cosmoscow, Russia’s leading contemporary art fair, held in Moscow from 4th to 6th September 2026 at the Timiryazev Center welcomed unprecedented 60,000 visitors, featured 107 galleries from across Russia, 23 partner projects, 11 non-profit initiatives, and 4 international participants. What is behind these figures?
The fair has recently changed hands but returned this season with a cutting-edge cross-section of contemporary art, a growing design section and increasing online trading on TEO, Cosmoscow’s online edition. A constant flood of visitors clearly signified the rise of collecting as both a social pastime and a means of socializing. Over the past decade many museums in Russia have established their own collector’s clubs; no wonder the collector activity was exceptionally strong. As the market recalibrates in 2026, more and more new collectors are stepping in – not always with a strategy and clear vision, but with aspiration and readiness to purchase. The total sales figures have not been fully disclosed until the online fair is over by 30th September, but the organizers reported several multi-million rouble transactions.
However, sanctions and Russia's isolation (including logistical difficulties, not to mention political barriers) have taken their toll. The fair, while still proudly labelled “international”, has refocused on the domestic art market and Russian participants, and its turn to the East and South has become not just a trend but a clear vector over the years. At the same time, the shift in global geopolitics and the desire to look beyond Western-centric artistic validation made it possible to introduce Russian audiences to the art scene of the countries previously underrepresented at the local market—these in various years included China, Qatar, Iran, South Korea, and Thailand.
India became the main international destination for this year's Cosmoscow. Why Indian art? Why now?
This wasn't a coincidence, but a well-planned collaboration strategy coupled with a unique combination of geopolitical changes and India’s art boom of the past decade. Indian contemporary art is gaining a notable foothold on the Russian art market due to private-public exhibitions and collector-driven initiatives rather than top-down official collaborations. This year alone, the Russian public and art aficionados enjoyed two major museum level shows – 'On the Sweetness of the World', the first large-scale display of contemporary Indian art in Russia in the last 15 years still running at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The exhibition brings together works by 11 Indian contemporary artists working in a range of media and genres - Sumakshi Singh, Pushpamala N, Anindita Bhattacharya and Afrah Shafiq to name a few - alongside pieces from museum collections.
Another show 'The World in a Single Nest" dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy was on view in Moscow all through the summer. This is hardly the full list of initiatives and projects that are aimed at introducing the Russian audience to contemporary Indian art and revitalizing interest in Indian art in general. Besides the exhibition activity Moscow’s GES-2 House of Culture partnered with New Delhi’s Khoj international art association to run artist residences and collaborative workshops. Last year Cosmoscow with its "Platform India: how the spirit becomes matter", a special project of the previous Cosmoscow edition, presented by Ekaterina and Andrey Terebenin, the leading collectors of Indian contemporary and traditional art in Russia, served as a springboard for the fair's current Indian participants.
For the first time, two Indian galleries, Art Incept and Threshold Art Gallery, participated in the Cosmoscow with independent booths. while the Terebenins presented their special project "Dvara: Conceptual Weaving" dedicated to contemporary and traditional Indian art. But if Tunty Chauhan, a prominent curator and the founder of New Delhi’s Threshold Gallery, has had an impressive record of participation in a number of projects in Russia, mostly with the Terebenins’ Foundation Dvara, in different capacities – as a co-curator, art consultant and gallerist, Art Incept is this year debutant.
“Visitors responded very strongly to the work presented. Many described it as calm and spiritual, and that led to a lot of questions, conversations and interest. We were very happy with that. We chose Cosmoscow because India and Russia share a long cultural relationship, and it felt like the right moment to bring our artists here. The energy is similar to other international fairs. People are deeply interested in art, they wanted to know more about our artists, and they really appreciated the works we brought. It has been a very warm and welcoming experience.”
Art Incept is well-known in India not only as a successful commercial gallery but also as a mentor-first platform working with emerging and mid- career artists from South Asia. Gayatri Singh, a founder and director of Art Incept, has a clear plan for the future:
“This time it’s so to say, 'sniffing the ground', we realize it’s the commitment we have to make, exposing our art to the audience. There has been a lot of focus in Russia for Indian art and therefore, we also believe that if there is that focus, we need to invest in this opportunity and exchange. We have seen Indian artists coming for residency and I’m sure there will be a lot of Russian artists interested in coming to India for residences too. We ourselves realize that we would need to invest at least for three years and to be coming here to build understanding in Indian art. And over time I’m sure there will be appetite for Indian art.”
Gayatri confirmed that many visitors were surprised to discover Indian contemporary looking like that – many still perceive Indian art as traditional. However, changes are underway. Every viewer has to make his own decision on how to comprehend what he had seen, but from my conversations with the
visitors, what they cherished most was how skillfully Indian artists deal with painstaking handcraft techniques and cultural roots.
Young Russian art collectors at the Art Incept booth looking at
Two Sides of My Window by Jit Chowdhury
Ilya and Maria, young professionals from Moscow, are in their early days of collecting. They have not lived in India but have travelled to various destinations around the country. Ilya says that it was quite unexpected for him to discover Indian contemporary art at Cosmoscow. The works by Jit Chowdhury with his monochromatic indigo colours and architectural forms and Sunil Yadav, whose visual language combines elegant geometric patterns with natural surroundings, appealed to him most.
“I must admit that this piece looks very Indian to me. It's fascinating – the colour scheme, some details used and patterns. No doubt this peace is very contemporary and I can easily imagine it on the wall in my house. But it’s still unusual to discover Indian art like that because we do not have a direct connection of India and contemporary art. It’s unexpected for me but feels very much like India.”
Faded Narratives and Fleeting Reality
Another highlight of Art Incept’s stand were paintings by Ram Dongre, the artist from Madhaya Pradesh who grew up working alongside his father, a maker of dolls for the festival cycle. Working in oil, he paints figures from the Puranic traditions, infected by Dhokra figurines and the tribal terracotta cultures of his native state, set against a mode of magical realism where the imagined sits inside the real. He currently explores “spontaneity in form”: the artist scrapes back his own paintings, layer by layer, to reveal their essence, akin to childhood memories. Forbes named Ram one of the seven artists to watch at the London Art Fair in 2025 and his work sits in the collections of Kumar Mangalam Birla and the Boston Consulting Group. His "faded narratives" certainly defined Gayatri Singh’s decision to name the presentation of all five artists at Cosmoscow “What remains …” Here is what she says about Ram Dongre’s art:
“I find his art very deep. He comes from a village in Madhya Pradesh and is the son of an idol-maker. From the age of ten, he helped make the idols of gods celebrated in our festivals, and at the end of each festival those idols were immersed in water and dissolved. So, from a young age he understood that nothing is permanent and that everything we create is eventually returned to the earth. Much of his work is about accepting that, and finding beauty in change and in letting go. He takes inspiration from ancient Indian frescoes, like those in the Ajanta and Ellora caves, which have slowly faded and peeled over centuries. He builds up layers of oil paint, leaves it to dry, and then strips them back, so the surface reveals the same gentle erosion seen on those old walls. He also believes that humans, animals and nature should live in harmony, an idea that runs through all his work, where these elements always come together.”
In the state of Madhya Pradesh, Gayatri explains, women often pick up pieces of cloth and stitch them together to make a blanket. “You see stitches going through his works and yet this is something that you would connect it with Russia,” she adds.
The theme of the fleeting reality continued at the Threshold Gallery section. Using a different technique, Ravikumar Kashi also transforms his pulp works into vessels of memory. In his hands paper becomes more than medium, but a speaking material. Kashi has exhibited widely across India and internationally (his recent exhibitions include Shadows of Light' at the Threshold Gallery and Art Mumbai 2025). In one of his works Echoes of Loss specially commissioned for Cosmoscow, the artist used Pushkin’s verses. Looking at this work Russians found themselves in a strange situation of the loss of memory: the text is supposed to be familiar and in fact the viewer cannot read it. This is exactly what the artist was aiming to demonstrate – to invite the audience to explore the delicate interplay between intention and interpretation through the lens of language. This time -- Pushkin’s.
Following the fair, 40% of galleries identify new collectors as the core of their audience while 36% point to recurrent buyers. In this respect, the situation of the art market in India is not so different from Russia or elsewhere. According to Gayatri, “with the larger base of the new collectors coming into the market, you must invest into them – develop them, educate them, assist them. We have a lot of workshops, educational programmes, collector’s events. Design is also playing an important role at these initial stages. But all of that you have to do consistently.”
It’s too early to predict how soon Indian contemporary art will find its way to a broader audience in Russia but the driving force, such as an innate interest, curiosity and love for India is already here.
(All images and videos are courtesy of the author and the respective artists and galleries, unless mentioned otherwise)
Elena Rubinova is a Moscow-based art journalist working across media, professional philologist, teacher, and translator. She started her career as an English language teacher before joining ABC News as a translator and producer. She has produced documentaries for BBC, National Geographic, Arte, Discovery Channel to name a few, including the three-part series The Art of Russia (BBC2, 2009). She has been a regular contributing writer for Russian magazines and on-line media such as ArtandYou, Artguide, Dialogue of Arts, International Life, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Russia Profile, Passport Moscow.
(The views and opinions expressed by the contributors in their articles, features, and interviews on artamour are solely those of the individual authors/artists and do not necessarily reflect the views of artamour or its owners.)
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