Lakeeren The Contemporary Art Gallery

About Us

The Other (Indian) Story: Retrospecting Lakeeren –The Contemporary Art Gallery 1995-2009 exhibited at the Modern Art Gallery, NCPA in March 2009 had a unique story to tell about Lakeeren Gallery that opened in 1995 in Vile Parle as one the first galleries to exist outside the South Mumbai, Kala Ghoda art circuit. The gallery’s uniqueness stemmed from the fact that it challenged itself to present avant-garde art that emerged at that moment in time to a new audience outside the usual South Mumbai collector’s circle. The impact and influence of Lakeeren gallery and the artists would be lost in the innards of time if not revisited or articulated as a story that needed to be told. This is particularly relevant given the current moment of globalization experienced by Indian art that can be traced back to the liberalization of the Indian economy that began in the early 1990s, the time when Lakeeren opened as a gallery. This moment of pre-globalization of Indian art was a time when the explosion of new material and media was visible in the works of younger artists, in which significant experimentation in photography, video, web based and installation art came to be viewed.