“Indian Paintings of the New Millennium,” exhibited 27 works of internationally recognized artists, including K. G. Subramanyan, Atul Dodiya and Arpana Caur as well as India’s most innovative emerging artists: Reena Kallat, T. V. Santosh, Subodh Gupta and others. It was one of the first exhibition of works by many emerging younger artists like Subodh Gupta when they were just making a splash on the global art scene.  In the following two decades these artists have gone on enjoy widespread international acclaim.

Reflecting a time of socio-political globalization of India, the exhibition artworks addressed cultural values and ethnic identities as well as contemporary, political, social, and environmental issues.  All works were created at the turn of the millennium.  

“Indian Paintings of the New Millennium,” addresses ways that selected contemporary Indian artists portray the themes of the triumph of hope and the potential for violence—the poles between which postmodern lives are strung, said Helen Asquine Fazio, Ph.D., the exhibition curator. 

This exhibition also travelled to the Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Brunswick, NJ in 2005 as a part of programming associated with the visit of His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. 

The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue with essays and descriptive entries by Dr. Fazio and Gayatri Sinha.