WHEN Mumbai art collector and patron, Saloni Doshi arrived in Saint Petersburg earlier this month, it was as part of an incredible milestone.
The occasion was Sediments of Becoming: Fossilised Present, Summoned Pasts at the State Hermitage Museum, the first exhibition dedicated to contemporary Indian art in the Russian institution’s 260-year history. Doshi credits this to collectors Ekaterina “Katya” and Andrey Terebenin, whose years in Delhi fostered lasting friendships across India’s art world. “This has come about because of excellent India-Russia relations and, of course, thanks to patronage funding,” Doshi told this diarist. The show saw co-curators Marina Schulz and Delhi-based gallerist Tunty Chauhan bring together 11 contemporary Indian artists working across painting, sculpture, installation and performance: G. Ravinder Reddy, Sumakshi Singh, Gargi Raina, Lakshmi Madhavan, Afrah Shafiq, V. Ramesh, Manjunath Kamath, Anindita Bhattacharya, Debashish Mukherjee, Pushpamala N, and Maya Krishna Rao.
June 20, 2026