Perched on the edge of the Thar desert and carved from sandstone, the city of Jodhpur is dressed in colours — from the golden sand to azure-washed houses radiant under the sun-drenched sky, the reds and yellows of turbans to indigo-dyed flags fluttering against the cityscape. Within its centuries-old fortified walls, more contemporary hues will come alive from October 1 to 7, when the Jodhpur Arts Week (JAW) will showcase projects that promote collaborations between traditional artisans from the region and more recognised mainstream names. Apart from fostering a shared creativity, the festival also reflects a changing India, where significant artistic initiatives are no longer confined to the metropolises and are finding newer homes and audience.Once restricted to Delhi and Mumbai — India’s leading art market hubs, with majority art galleries and institutions — the country’s art map is now being redrawn to include cities earlier considered peripheral to the commercial art world. Apart from the proliferation of art galleries in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and numerous travelling exhibitions, demonstrating this inclusivity is also an evolving art calendar that commences with India Art Fair (IAF) in Delhi in February and features Art Mumbai in November, but concludes with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kochi and Serendipity Arts Festival in Panjim in December. The months in between are dotted with vibrant festivals that include, among others, Jaipur Art Week, Ahmedabad Cultural Week (ACW), Chennai Photo Biennale, JAW, Bengal Biennale and Madras Art Weekend.“Delhi and Mumbai still lead the art market but there is a timely need to decentralise and cultivate the potential in other cities that are exhibiting interest and purchasing power,” says Jaya Asokan, director of IAF. While in recent years, the fair has seen an increase in gallery applications from cities such as Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Vadodara, Pune and Jaipur, it is also now supporting initiatives in different capacities and formats across India. In November, it will launch the multi-city IAF Editions with a showcase in Hyderabad that will feature a curated selection of 11 art galleries and three design studios from across India, walkthroughs and programming at the local galleries. “The goal is to create a sustainable value for regional art ecosystems by showcasing both local and national galleries together… Decentralised models promote responsiveness and innovation,” adds Asokan.The city that was once home to renowned architect BV Doshi and influential artist and mentor Ravishankar Raval, Ahmedabad is now attempting to carve a new chapter in Indian contemporary art. Witnessing the emergence of several new galleries in the last decade, the heritage city will host the maiden edition of ACW from October 3 to 12. Spread across 15 cultural organisations, it will feature exhibitions, performances, film screenings, workshops and book readings. At Arthshila, for instance, craft researcher Archi Banerjee will delve into textile narratives and their evolving histories and at Shreyas Foundation, museum objects will be used for curriculum-linked learning. Though the festival will showcase works of artists from across India, an exhibition at Archer Art Gallery will be dedicated to Ahmedabad-based artists. A child at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Panjim, Goa (Photo by Serendipity Arts Festival)“We wanted to be inclusive and diverse, as we balanced the genres of art spaces, some of which showcased traditional realms of art or had commercial considerations and a few that unveiled socially charged issues,” says curatorial director Shristi Sainani.The idea of the festival emerged when Sainani noticed a spurt of contemporary art-related activities in Ahmedabad after she moved in from Delhi in 2021. “People would often share how they were travelling to Delhi and Mumbai for exhibitions, even though these conversations were largely confined to certain circles. This prompted me to explore the city’s untapped potential,” she recalls. So in December last year, she began working on the programming, also strategising ways to generate public interest.Sainani notes, “A Tier-2 city like Ahmedabad may not yet have the same scale of audience as Delhi or Mumbai, nor the infrastructure of large companies accustomed to handling artworks, but these ecosystems will evolve over time as the market grows and public interest deepens.”Director of Serendipity Arts Foundation Smriti Rajgarhia recalls how when locations were being scouted for the festival over a decade ago, Panjim seemed a natural fit. “It was perfect — walkable, it also had the infrastructure to host visitors due to its tourist bent, a great built environment and beautiful heritage buildings. We did face scepticism as these spaces weren’t originally intended for cultural use but once we presented the larger vision, the idea really took off. It was about transformation through culture and how cultural engagement could make public spaces more accessible to a wider audience, including both locals and those willing to take time out to immerse themselves in the experience. That kind of multi-day festival engagement is difficult in a big city where life often takes over our time,” says Rajgarhia. In the coming months, the festival will also have mini editions in Dubai and cities across India.Story continues below this adPart of JAW this year, Delhi-based artist Puneet Kaushik reflects on the importance of engaging with art in person. He notes, “In this digital age, while people have more opportunities than ever to discover art, physical interaction remains crucial to truly benefit from that exposure.”Having worked with traditional artisans for decades, Kaushik emphasises how collaborative initiatives contribute to the sustainability of their crafts. Titled Embodied, his installation at JAW explores multifaceted narratives of femininity, tradition and cultural memory through the lens of indigenous crafts. It has as co-creators practitioners of traditional techniques such as tie-and-dye, Chippa printing, leather-relief cutouts, beadwork, gold-embossing and durrie-weaving.In India’s art history perhaps lies the understanding of its commercial geography. Often considered to have its beginnings in 19th-century Bengal, the modern art movement in India had a range of influences, including the colonial rulers who were also patrons and established or administered several art institutions, including the Madras School of Art, Government College of Art & Craft in Calcutta and Sir JJ School of Art in Bombay.Though Kolkata retained its reputation as a cultural hub and places such as Vadodara and Santiniketan gained prominence owing to the presence of prestigious art institutions, the commercial activities in post-independent India gradually shifted to the financial centre of Mumbai and the political capital of Delhi. With the Bombay Art Society active since the 1880s, the cosmopolitan Mumbai, with critics and connoisseurs, also became the birthplace of the Progressive Artists’ Group that included stalwarts such as MF Husain, SH Raza, KH Ara and FN Souza.Story continues below this adDelhi, on other hand, gained prominence with national institutions, state patronage, presence of artists such as J Swaminathan, Ram Kumar, and the collective Delhi Shilpi Chakra, established by artists such as BC Sanyal and Dhanraj Bhagat, who had migrated to India from Pakistan and intended to nurture a forum for artistic expression in a new nation. Contemporary Now in Chennai (Photo by Ashvita’s)Once marginal in the global discourse, Indian art is now experiencing measurable growth. According to the 2024-2025 ‘Indian Art Market Report’ released by Asign Data Sciences, since 2019-2020 the Indian art market has witnessed a steady growth of 14.2 per cent. Director of Asign, Ashvin E Rajagopalan, notes that for the sustainability of this momentum, democratisation of art is instrumental. “The art world is severely gate-kept. We need to democratise it. More than 90 per cent of the artists showing in Delhi and Mumbai aren’t originally from those cities but exhibit there due to the market and that’s what needs to expand. Many Indians have the money to buy art; it’s about generating interest,” says Rajagopalan.Also director of Piramal Art Foundation and Chennai-based art gallery Ashvita’s, last month he organised ‘Contemporary Now’ in Chennai. Featuring five of India’s leading art galleries, the show presented contemporary artworks priced between Rs 1 and 10 lakh. “Chennai has one of the oldest art colleges in India, yet there have been no more than four art galleries in the last four decades. In the absence of infrastructure to organise large exhibitions, collectors often turned to bigger cities. Now, attempts are being made to change that. By inviting prominent galleries to the city, we were also testing how it would be if we brought the sought-after art directly to the city. It was a tremendous success. We sold 50 per cent of the show,” says Rajagopalan. He now plans to organise such collaborative exhibitions every few months in Chennai. His gallery, meanwhile, spotlights artists who were part of the Madras Art Movement, exploring its rich legacy.Artist Richa Arya, who is a participant at JAW, notes how it is also vital to build connections with the locals. Her installation, Bound by Threads, United by Hands, has been developed in collaboration with Sindhi women embroiderers practising mukka embroidery, honouring the tradition as a living archive of memory and material. Apart from a walkthrough, she will also conduct a workshop at a school in Jodhpur on how to transform recycled fabrics, focusing on embroidery techniques.Story continues below this adSerendipity, meanwhile, not just features segments that explore Goa’s heritage but also renovates public buildings in the city with each edition. One of the first buildings it restored, Adil Shah Palace, is now being converted into a museum by the state. “Culture has this magical ability to adapt,” adds Rajgarhia. An exhibition at Indigo Art Museum at the Ahmedabad Cultural Week (Photo by Indigo Art Museum/ACW)Colours of transformation are beginning to surface. “Mumbai and Delhi still account for nearly 60-65 per cent of the domestic art market but in the last three-four years we have observed a change with rising disposable incomes across other cities and a growing realisation that art is a generational asset. As people build bigger homes, there is a certain degree of social pressure to acquire good art, which also comes with increasing awareness and engagement,” says Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder and CEO of Saffronart. He adds, “The emergence of small private museums in cities such as Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Baroda is also motivating collectors in these regions to acquire the best.”Also Read | Kolkata iconic yellow taxis painted in pujo shadesThe movement, meanwhile, isn’t restricted to the white cube or commerce. It’s visible on urban facades, roads and the very alleys where people live, from Bhubaneswar to Pune, Prayagraj to Shillong, Patna to Puducherry. Neighbourhoods are now being reimagined as art districts — Kannagi Art District in Chennai to Ukkadam in Coimbatore and Maqtha Art District in Hyderabad.In the quiet corners of smaller cities, art is no longer a distant luxury but a lived experience. And as the artistic landscape broadens, more than geography, it is about democratisation. In this shift, India is not losing its commercial epicentres but gaining new ones.