KNMA’s Kiran Nadar isn’t slowing down

Kiran Nadar has always been singular — standing out in her designer Shantanu & Nikhil outfits, with her ready smile, and her effortless poise. Even while zipping around on an electric scooter, handpainted by London-based artist Raqib Shaw, at the India Art Fair earlier this year.

Now, the art collector, philanthropist and founder of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) is also the recipient of the Padma Shri, one of India’s highest civilian recognitions. But she remains as accessible as ever. I am reminded of the day I first met her, in 2010, when she excitedly announced the launch of KNMA Noida. The inaugural exhibition, Open Doors, curated by the museum’s director and chief curator Roobina Karode, presented the art Nadar had collected over the last two decades.

She is as animated when we catch up recently over a phone call to discuss KNMA’s next chapter — a new museum that is due to open in 2026-27. “It will be near the Indira Gandhi International Airport, and is being designed by Adjaye Associates [the firm of renowned Ghanaian-British architect Sir David Adjaye],” she says.

The architectural model of KNMA’s new cultural centre
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In Venice, Nadar and the KNMA team are unveiling an immersive show on M.F. Husain to coincide with the 60th edition of the Venice Biennale. Curated by Karode, the sensory exhibition is an intimate one that builds the narrative through the modernist’s paintings, photographs, prints, texts and poems. “We are honoured to bring this ambitious project, of the life and work of Husain, to Venice, at the moment when the world’s artists are coming together to create a tapestry that binds us as a global community,” she says. “One of the driving missions of KNMA is to raise awareness about Indian and South Asian artists and to make art accessible to diverse audiences. So, we are proud to offer this exhibition free of charge, so that as many people as possible can know the lasting impact of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.”

Detail of the immersive M.F. Husain exhibition in Venice

‘20 exhibitions on opening night’

As excited as she is about Venice, Nadar is keener to discuss her new project, which will be located on a 100,000 square metre site on National Highway 8, which connects Delhi and Mumbai. “We will have an auditorium, a café that will be open to all, a fine dining restaurant with a curated menu, a cultural centre — that will showcase performance, music, dance, cinema and other forms of the visual — and a store selling art books, posters, postcards and other design knick-knacks.” She pauses before delivering a surprise. “There will be 20 exhibitions on the opening night because we will have that many galleries!” To meet the demands, not only does she plan to bring more curators on board, but the museum will host guest curators.

Stretched Terrains

“While things will not change at Noida, the Saket museum will take on a new character,” she adds. “It will become a residency space with a library and alternative projects and art practices being supported. We will approach it after the new space is launched.” Meanwhile, on the roster for 2024 is an exhibition featuring photographer Dayanita Singh, followed by a grand retrospective for painter and poet Gulam Mohammed Sheikh in 2025.

“I will always be proud of the way we started Saket with the Nasreen Mohamedi show, which was taken up by the MET Royal. It was a major event and the start of global recognition,” shares Nadar. “We then hosted an exhibition of seven important women artists: Anita Dube, Bharti Kher, Dayanita Singh, Ranjani Shettar, Sheba Chhachhi, Sheela Gowda and Sonia Khurana [in 2013, Seven Contemporaries]. It also included works by [Hungarian-Indian painter] Amrita Sher-Gil. It was something that was needed in India at the time.”

Bharti Kher’s Drunken Frenzy of Love from Seven Contemporaries

Shows that made an impact

An exhibition she holds dear is a 2016 solo on Himmat Shah. “I pick this show as important because it had an artist who had not been ‘celebrated’ with the pomp and vigour he deserved,” she says. Also on Nadar’s list: Vivan Sundaram’s retrospective. “I was close to Vivan; we were friends,” she says, remembering the contemporary artist who passed away last March at the age of 79 in New Delhi.

From Himmat Shah’s Hammer on the Square

From Vivan Sundaram’s retrospective

Among other significant exhibitions, she recalls with pride is the 2017 show Stretched Terrains featuring the three progressives: F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza and M.F. Husain. She also talks fondly about Subodh Gupta’s 33-foot Mushroom Cloud, which was installed in the atrium of the Saket gallery. Now in storage, “we will re-install his work at the new museum”.

M.F. Husain’s art at Stretched Terrains

Nadar states she never dreamed that the KNMA would have such a big project. “I had thought of opening a small museum in Noida to share my collection of 500 works with the public, but it has just grown to such a proportion that I will be able to show my vintage collection, my miniatures, and our Modern and Contemporary collections.”

The writer is a critic-curator by day, and a visual artist by night.