Hot List: Art Exhibitions To See This November in India
Check out art exhibitions you can visit across Mumbai and Delhi
Five years ago Hollywood star Ethan Hawke, who is recognised for films including The Dead Poets Society and Before Sunrise amongst others, said that art is exactly what we need when we don't have the luxury of feeling normal. And he is almost right.
One can argue that going for art exhibitions don't necessarily have to be at times when your days are filled with gloom or the you'd like the world you stop and swallow you whole. Truth be told, art is actually sustenance. We can appreciate it even on those so-called normal days even when the year is nearing its end and unfolding into a brand new one.
There is a reason why art is supposed to be timeless and with a hot list curated just for your artsy likings, you can expect the month of November to be more than a bunch of restraints you follow before you can let go on the New Year's.
Art Exhibitions That You Will Love Going To This November in Mumbai and Delhi
1. Please Touch Gently
When: 5th October- 10th January 2026
Where: KNMA, Saket, Delhi
In a library-like space curators aqui Thami, Bharath Murthy, and himanshu s, with curatorial advisor Akansha Rastogi, Associate Director, Visual Arts, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art celebrate the fragility, tactility, and rebellious spirit of zines and comics, where visitors can touch, read, and even make their own copies.
First of its scale and scope, the exhibition showcases a survey of the Indian comic scene, and the worlds of self publishing and small presses coming together within a museum setting. Divided into three sections, each curated by makers with distinct propositions, it unfolds as a constellation of experiments in storytelling. As resistance, as survival, as ways of being, doing, undoing, talking back, taking back. Fearlessly. Unapologetically.
2. The Sky In The Palm by Shailesh B.R
When: 7th November- 10th December
Where: Vadehra Art Gallery
A solo exhibition curated by Mario D'Souza spotlights Shailesh B.R's mechanical practice in a comprehensive way for the very first time. Conflating automation with mixed media, grasping at objects of interest in the material world to navigate the truths of a metaphysical experience, Shailesh remains committed to articulating the sculptural nature of the imagination.
Often fostering esoteric dialogues through culturalised interpretations of ancient or ancestral knowledge sources in situations of contemporary appeal, he through play and performance, centres a post-human construction of self-hood as the heart of their investigation.
3. Art Mumbai
When: 13-16th November
Where: Mahalaxmi Racecourse, Mumbai
South Asia’s biggest modern and contemporary art fair, Art Mumbai, is back again with the fair's headliner being Tyeb Mehta centennial retrospective, jointly presented by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, the Tyeb Mehta Foundation, and the Saffronart Foundation.
Indian galleries and curators including Chemould Prescott Road, Nature Morte, DAG, and Vadehra Art Gallery will share space with global names like Lisson Gallery, Sundaram Tagore, Ben Brown Fine Arts, and Galleria Continua reflecting the reach of Mumbai’s art scene that is no longer facing backwards. Rather it is eagerly awaiting to make its global mark.
4. Art Deco Centenary Festival
When: 6th November- 25th November
Where: Mumbai
Art Deco, an architectural design that origins the streets of Paris in 1920s has found appreciation in the city of Mumbai. The style that was introduced 100 years ago and has become part of the history of the city with all its old world buildings, pastel colours is set to be celebrated at the Art Deco Festival this month.
With largest collections of art deco buildings after Miami, over 350 Art Deco buildings have been documented across the city's south to north axis and architecturally shaped modern Bombay. The festival starts Nov 6 with an exhibition at BDLM named ‘ ‘Ocean Drive to Marine Drive' which connects Mumbai to its cultural cousin Miami and is open to the public.
5. The Mute Eloquence of The Taj Mahal
When: 25th October 2025- 6th December
Where: DAG World, New Delhi
One of the 7 wonders of the world, Taj Mahal has been a muse for artists over many years so to see it back in art galleries may not feel out of place. But Rana Safvi, the guest curator at DAG World raises a new perspective to admire the indescribable beauty and symbolism of the monument.
Taking a cue from Shah Jahan’s court chronicler Abdul Hamid Lahauri who spoke of the ‘mute eloquence’ of what he called the ‘Rauza-i Munawwara’, she shows how the tomb’s design and details speak to us of the beliefs, aspirations and condition of Shah Jahan and his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal through the art exhibition.
6. 'Jo Gayab Hai, Aur Hazir Bhi' Book Sculptures by Saba Hasan
When: 5 October 2025 - 10 January 2026
Where: KNMA, Saket, Delhi
Building on this engagement with form and material, ‘jo ġāyab hai, aur hāzir bhi’, presents Saba Hasan’s book sculptures in a comprehensive display for the first time, bringing together both her early works and her multi-media experiments.
Hasan’s practice transforms books of varied sizes through folding, cutting, burning, layering and embedding, often with organic and inorganic materials. She destabilises language while reconstituting its fragments as sculptural artifacts of memory, utterances and erasures.
The exhibition title, referencing renowned poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge, interrogates the dialectics of presence and absence and situates the book as a site of reflection.