RR Art Circle is Robb Report India’s new initiative spotlighting the people who shape Indian art beyond the canvas and auction block. From designers and collectors to curators, gallerists, and experimental artists, this circle will guide readers through recommendations, insights, and future trends around art throughout this month.
Art rarely speaks for itself. It needs context, conversation, and the right people to draw out its meaning, which is exactly why we are introducing the RR Art Circle. This July, Robb Report India turns its lens towards the world of art. We bring together a set of voices who live and breathe in the art world every day. Designers, collectors, curators, gallerists, and artists who, between them, understand how Indian art is made, collected, shown, and talked about.
Over the coming weeks, this circle will be our guide through the theme, offering recommendations, insights, and a closer look at where Indian art is headed. Think of it as a conversation with people who have spent decades in the room where it happens. Here is who you will be hearing from.
Ashiesh Shah works at the meeting point of art, craft and design, and it shows in everything he touches. The Mumbai-based designer is known for a style that pairs old-world Indian craftsmanship with a sharper, more contemporary visual language, clean geometry and considered materials.
He often draws on the Japanese idea of wabi-sabi, finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence rather than polish. Shah is also a keen curator, regularly bringing together exhibitions that spotlight Indian talent across art, craft and design, an interest that feeds directly back into his own practice. In 2017, he founded Atelier Ashiesh Shah, a studio built to dissolve the line between art and design altogether, treating every project as a space for experimentation and collaboration. His work today spans India and beyond, and continues to pick up recognition for its distinctive, handcrafted-yet-futuristic character. For our July theme, Shah brings the eye of someone who treats design itself as a form of art.
Few people carry an instinct for art quite as naturally as Kalyani Saha Chawla. Raised in a home steeped in art and artists, she grew into one of India's most discerning collectors and patrons, with a personal collection that moves between inherited Bengal School paintings and contemporary and antique pieces. In the late 1990s, she and her mother, Alaknanda Saha, founded Montage Arts in Kolkata, a gallery that has since hosted exhibitions for some of India's most celebrated artists. Chawla is also a founding member of the Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), reflecting a deeper commitment to nurturing the wider ecosystem, not just collecting from it. Her Delhi home doubles to a private gallery, curated with the same instinct she brings to her professional work. For the RR Art Circle, she offers the perspective of a true connoisseur, someone for whom collecting has always been personal before it was ever a pursuit.
As Creative Director of Abraham & Thakore, one of India's most respected fashion and textile labels, David Abraham has spent decades finding new ways to express old ideas. A graduate of the National Institute of Design, the Singapore-born designer has built a body of work that reinterprets traditional Indian craft through a restrained, contemporary lens. Each season, he reworks the label's story to keep it distinctive and competitive on both Indian and international stages, while staying true to a design philosophy that values material, form and craft over fast, mass-produced fashion. Abraham & Thakore's work reflects urban Indian life as it actually is. Rooted in identity, but never closed off from the world. In a market increasingly driven by speed and scale, Abraham continues to make the case for slower, more considered craftsmanship. He joins the Art Circle as someone who treats textile and design as their own form of visual art.
Together, Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra form one of India's most experimental artist duos, working fluidly across painting, sculpture, installation, video, performance, and design. Their work has travelled widely, with shows at the Asia Pacific Triennial, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Arken Museum in Denmark, Kunstmuseum Bochum, the Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art and Tokyo's Mori Art Museum, among others. Closer to home, their 2015 solo show Games People Play at Mumbai's Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum remains a standout moment in their career. Thukral, born in Jalandhar in 1976, and Tagra, born in New Delhi in 1979, trained separately before coming together as a duo, each bringing a distinct design and fine art background to a practice that constantly shifts in form. Their inclusion in the Art Circle brings a cross-boundary voice to the conversation.
Sana Rezwan moves comfortably between business and the arts. By day, she serves as Executive Director at Prestige Group, one of India's leading real estate companies, where she also leads corporate social responsibility efforts. Before that, she ran The Art Lab Studio in New York, an agency that built experiential art programmes for luxury brands, galleries and institutions, sharpening her instinct for how culture and commerce can work together. In 2022, she founded the Public Arts Trust of India (PATI), a non-profit working to make arts and culture more accessible across India, with initiatives spanning artist residencies, education and community programming. PATI is also behind Jaipur Art Week and Jodhpur Arts Week, two annual events that have become genuine launchpads for emerging artists and designers. Rezwan is also a member of Harvard's South Asia Institute Arts Council and supports institutions including Khoj Studios and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She brings to the Circle a rare ability to connect grassroots art initiatives with a truly global audience.
As Fair Director of the India Art Fair, Jaya Asokan holds one of the most influential roles in South Asian art today. A graduate of Parsons School of Design in New York, she brings nearly three decades of experience spanning design firms, auction houses, and galleries in both the US and India. Under her direction, the fair has expanded its international participation, broadened accessibility, and grown its programming well beyond a few days each year, while continuing to champion craft and design alongside contemporary art. Her approach is shaped by a clear set of priorities: sustainability, emerging voices and genuine cross-disciplinary engagement. With India Art Fair now firmly established as a key fixture on the global art calendar, Asokan offers the Circle a bird's-eye view of where the Indian art market stands today, and where it is heading next.
Six different vantage points, one shared obsession with Indian art in all its forms. Over the next few weeks, the RR Art Circle will take us deeper into the stories, spaces and ideas shaping the scene right now.
Stay tuned for more.