Mumbai Art walks get a new stop; See icons of Indian Modern Art at DAG's new Taj Gallery

There’s a new kid on the block in Mumbai’s art gallery circuit. DAG, which had occupied a space at an aging heritage building near Kala Ghoda till 2020, is back, having relocated to another heritage structure - this time one of the most iconic buildings in Mumbai, the Taj Palace Hotel at the Gateway of India.

The new DAG gallery actually comprises two separate spaces on the prestigious hotel’s ground floor, and for the opening, they were both playing host to an ambitious exhibition showcasing the Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art. The works on display spanned a period of over two centuries and myriad themes, from the British East India Company’s Raj to urban life in Independent India, and from religious realism to cubist depictions of India’s villages. And everything in between.

The first space, which also boasts a mezzanine floor curated with possessions of various key figures through history, is adorned with paintings of some of the best-known names of Indian art. A rare MF Husain landscape is perhaps the highlight, the historic palace city of Udaipur depicted in a painting of the same name from his Rajasthan series. In it, amidst the ochres of the great Indian desert and hotchpotch of royal and other buildings, the white elephant is the elephant in the room.    

Not far from Udaipur is Dutch artist Marius Bauer’s depiction of another historic (and sacred) Indian city - Varanasi. The subject of Festival On The Ganges is easily recognisable, the famous ghats abuzz with activity, riverboats packed with pilgrims and the Kashi Vishwanath mandir visible in the background.

Agra is next up, and gets its prime of place in the form of an eyewateringly large ‘Company drawing’-type draughtsman’s panorama of Agra fort. It spans the entire wall and is amenable to attempts to take panorama-style photos.

The show is not all about Indian cities and not even all about paintings in general, with an impressively tall work capturing the magic of the residential streets of Paris, apart from an abstract cubist bust of Rabindranath Tagore.

The walk to the other part of the gallery is a short one, through the corridor of the old hotel which is also host to a number of luxury brands. This gallery is larger, only on one floor, and is laid out in a more traditional gallery style. 

The paintings and installations here are just as breathtaking. Particularly eye-catching is a meeting of various Indian Gods to watch Shiva’s Tandav, as well as a textured industrial-waste laden panel of what appears to be an eagle-eye view of an ancient civilisation.

Another artwork depicts what could be considered a close-up view of the atmospheric storms of Jupiter, though that analysis could easily be way off the mark.

One of the best things about gallery-hopping in Mumbai is being able to walk through historic buildings and heritage locales, and a bonus with DAG is getting to walk into the Taj Palace Hotel. Having never been inside, I had envisioned the entire building’s central wing to be a sort of multi-floor grand lobby, cut from the same cloth as the Grand Budapest Hotel in Wes Anderson’s film. And it was, in a sense, while not as expansive as I’d hoped, certainly very tall and delightfully adorned with large mirrors and paintings, and painted in pink sandstone to resemble an inside-out cake! 

The Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art are on display at DAG at the Taj till May 30.

(Images: Republic World at the DAG/Taj Palace Hotel)