"Each Artist Need Only Answer To Themselves": Peter Nagy On 30 Years of Nature Morte

This year, art gallery Nature Morte is celebrating a significant milestone of having completed 30 years since its inception. Part of the celebration entails the opening of its new permanent space at A9 Gulmohar Park, New Delhi. Set to be inaugurated on August 23, the new space will open with  The Evolution of the Soothsayer, a two-part exhibition curated by Peter Nagy bringing together 35 artists from across the gallery's roster. Unfolding in two chapters — Part One from August 22 to October 10, 2026, and Part Two from October 17 to December 12, 2026, — the show is expected to reflect on the position of contemporary artists today amid four decades of upheaval in the art world, from globalisation and identity politics to the digital revolution in image-making. Rather than tracing a single collective movement, it foregrounds artists who have built distinct visual languages of their own. The new gallery itself occupies an entire building, with two exhibition floors and a rooftop terrace, giving Nature Morte considerably more room to manoeuvre as it enters its fourth decade. Ahead of the opening, Nagy spoke about the exhibition's title, its curatorial logic, and what three decades in Delhi's art world have taught him.

The Evolution Of The Soothsayer

Asked what made The Evolution of the Soothsayer the right exhibition to mark such a milestone, Nagy is clear that inclusiveness came first. "We wanted the show to be inclusive, and have as many of the artists that we work with in it as possible," he says. The title, he explains, is really about autonomy: "The title means that each artist needs only answer to themselves. Evolution is a gradual process, which can go in any number of directions, and doesn't have any pre-existing models that need to be followed." For Nagy, the "soothsayer" framing is a deliberately individual one — "the artist needs to be a Soothsayer but only for themselves, to predict their own future and the future of their artistic practice, regardless of what anyone else is doing."

Thirty-Five Artists, No Single School

With 35 artists spanning three generations, the exhibition can be seen as a culmination of Nature Morte’s glorious years in existence. "The curatorial thread is that these are the artists that we have been working with and represent," Nagy says. "We have mounted solo shows with all of these artists, in many cases multiple times." The real challenge, he admits, was structural: "to bring these multiple and diverse practices together into a cohesive exhibition, which has ended up being two exhibitions." The two chapters mirror each other in design — "no artist will be in both shows, both shows combine artists from three different generations, and both shows incorporate all manner of art objects in all mediums."

On the sweep of mediums — painting, sculpture, photography, installation and new media — Nagy sees simple reality rather than a trend. "The range is the reality. Artists today have unbridled freedom to do whatever they want, which includes making the most traditional types of art objects to creating things which many people might not even recognize as art."

Looking Back Without Surprise

Nagy arrived in Delhi in 1992 and revived Nature Morte in 1997. Looking back from 2026, he insists nothing about the Indian art world's growth has caught him off guard. "The Indian contemporary art scene of the 1990s was quite small and provincial but I think I recognised its potential, given the great breadth and depth of Indian culture," he says. "I would have been surprised if this didn't happen."

On backing conceptual art, photography and installation before the market had caught up, his reasoning was straightforward: "I saw strong, interesting work, that was on a level with art being made in Europe and the Americas. I showed art because it was good art, not because it had a market." Even now, he is candid about the market's limits: "The market is still quite conservative and doesn't really accommodate the most radical propositions."

Globalisation, A New Address, And What Shouldn't Change

Of the forces reshaping artists' lives — globalisation, identity politics, the digital revolution — Nagy points to globalisation as decisive for Indian artists, noting that institutions worldwide now seek to diversify their programming, which "has opened many doors for Indian artists."

The move to Gulmohar Park, he says, is as much about accessibility as ambition: "being more central in the city makes it easier for more people to visit the gallery," while the building's architecture, "being more elastic and malleable," gives the gallery "more flexibility in how we put the shows together."

As for the future, Nagy expects the next generation of artists to push Nature Morte outward rather than change its core. "The challenges will come from where our artists take us outside of our own gallery," he says. What he hopes stays fixed is the gallery's standard: "Nature Morte has built its reputation on presenting art of a rigorous and serious calibre, and this certainly isn't going to change."

The Evolution of the Soothsayer, curated by Peter Nagy and featuring 35 artists, marks Nature Morte's 30th anniversary and the opening of its new permanent Gulmohar Park space, running in two parts (August 22 – October 10 and October 17 – December 12, 2026) at A9 Gulmohar Park, New Delhi, Monday–Saturday, 11 AM–7 PM.