Manish Nai Gujarat, India, b.1980
Manish Nai (b.1980, Gujarat, India) received a Diploma in Drawing and Painting from the L.S. Raheja School of Art in Mumbai. Working with materials that are both modest and distinctly Indian—such as jute, newspaper, used clothes, old books, and found or rusted corrugated metal sheets—Nai compresses, reshapes, and reconfigures them into sculptural and pictorial forms. His practice highlights transformation, where the material’s history and memory are preserved while its form becomes entirely new.
Nai has exhibited internationally at institutions including Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai; Para Site, Hong Kong; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; NTU CCA, Singapore; Het Noordbrabants Museum, Netherlands; and the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago. He has participated in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014, 2018) and the Shanghai Biennale (2012). His solo exhibitions include Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York; Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris and St. Moritz; Galerie Kavi Gupta, Chicago; Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai; and Nature Morte, New Delhi. In 2017, the Fondation Fernet Branca in St. Louis, France, presented a comprehensive retrospective of his paintings, murals, sculptures, and photographs.
Click on the link below to read more about Manish Nai in his recent feature on Art Forum.
Selected Artworks
Solo Exhibitions
2023
SURFACING, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
Indeterminate Traces, Nature Morte, New Delhi, India
2021
Regenerative Visions, Nature Morte, New Delhi, India
Form and Void, Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York, USA
2019
Meridians, presented by Kavi Gupta, Art Basel Miami, USA
A History of Gestures, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, USA
Materiality, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France
2018
Paper City and Ghost Modernity, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
Manish Nai–Recent Works, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany
Manish Nai: Capturing Time, Het Noordbrabants Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
2017
Expo Chicago, curated by Florence Derieux, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, USA
Manish Nai, Fondation Fernet-Branca, St. Louis, France
2016
Matter as Medium, Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France
2015
Manish Nai, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, USA
2014
Manish Nai, Galerie Karsten Greve, St. Moritz, Switzerland
2013
Sculpting in Time, presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Art Basel Hong Kong
2012
COMPACT, Galerie Gebr. Lehmann, Berlin, Germany
2010
Extramural, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
2009
Manish Nai – New Works, Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne, Germany
2007
Minimal Structures, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
2005
Threading A Coded Path, Apparao Galleries, Delhi and Chennai, India
2004
The Museum Gallery, curated by Pinakin Patel
Group Exhibitions
2025
Blue Futures: Reimagining Indigo, Curated by Meera Curam, Hampi Art Labs, Hampi
2021
Botanical Campus, curated by Lucrecia Piedrahita, EI Castillo Museum, Medellín, Colombia
2020
Origins of a Perennial Bouquet, curated by Bose Krishnamachari, Vida Heydari Contemporary, Pune, India
The Future is not Fixed, Nature Morte, New Delhi, India
The Written Word, Gallery Kavi Gupta, Chicago, USA
The Idea of the Acrobat, presented by Nature Morte at the Center for Contemporary Art, Bikaner House, New Delhi, India
2019
Alteration Activation Abstraction, curated by Betty Seid, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York, USA
Deeper Within Its Silence, curated by Sumakshi Singh, presented by Devi Art Foundation at Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum, Ahmedabad, India
Alchemy, presented by Arvind Indigo Museum at the Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum, Ahmedabad, India
2018
Connecting Threads: Textiles in Contemporary Practice, curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta and Puja Vaish, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India
Trees of Life – Knowledge in Material Part I, curated by Ute Meta Bauer, NTU Center for Contemporary Art Singapore, Gillman Barracks, Singapore
A BEAST, A GOD, AND A LINE, curated by Cosmin Costinas, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland; Dhaka Art Summit and Para Site, Hong Kong
Turn of the Tide, KHOJ International Artists’ Association, New Delhi, India
2017
The Sculpture Park, curated by Peter Nagy, Madhavendra Palace, Nahargrah Fort, Jaipur, India
Asymmetrical Objects, curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India
DWELLING – 10th Anniversary Show (Part II), curated by Ranjit Hoskote, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
2016
Gallerists as Interventionists: Collaboration as Strategy, Lakeeren Gallery, Mumbai, India
Abstract Chronicles, curated by Girish Shahane, presented by Gallery OED at Kochi, India
2015
Prudential Eye Award Exhibition, Art Science Museum, Singapore
2014
Whorled Explorations, 2nd Kochi-Muziris Biennale, curated by Jitish Kallat, Kochi, India
Ethereal, curated by Dr. Amin Jaffer, Leila Heller Gallery, New York, USA
Midnight's Grandchildren, curated by Girish Shahane, Studio X, Mumbai, India
The Material Point: Reconsidering the Medium on the (Post)modern Moment, curated by Dr.Kathleen Wyma, Gallery OED, Kochi, India
2012
Asia Art Archive Fundraiser, Hong Kong
The Indian Parallax or the Doubling of Happiness, curated by Shaheen Merali, Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata, India
9th Shanghai Biennale – Mumbai City Pavilion, curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt and Susan Hapgood, Shanghai, China
news, with Eberhard Havekost, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
Art HK12, presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke at the Hong Kong International Art Fair, Hong Kong
Art Dubai, Dubai, presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
The Skoda Prize Show, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, India
examples to follow!, curated by Adrienne Goehler, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya at the Premchand Roychand Gallery, Mumbai, India
2011
Abstract Articulations, Gallery Espace, New Delhi, India
Home Spun, curated by Girish Shahane, Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, India
5th Anniversary Exhibition, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
India Art Summit, New Delhi, India, presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
India Inclusive: Contemporary Art from India, curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland
2009
PANORAMA: INDIA, presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke at ARCO_Madrid, Madrid
Relative Visa, curated by Bose Krishnamachari, Bodhi Art Gallery, Mumbai, India
2008
India Art Summit, New Delhi, India, presented by Apparao Galleries, Chennai, India
Gallery Weekend, presented by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke at the Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig, Germany
2007
1st Anniversary Exhibition, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, India
2005
Present-Future, curated by Dr. Saryu Doshi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, India
2003
Beppu Asia Contemporary Art Exhibition, Beppu Museum, Japan
2002
Singapore Art Fair, presented by Apparao Galleries at Singapore
2000
Monsoon Show, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, India
Awards
Erasmus Award - Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin, Germany 1993
Lalit Kala Academy Award, Printmaking 1991
Books
MANISH NAI, published by Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai, 2015
Featured in:
Künstler: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Kunsthandel Verlag GMBH,
Frankfurt, 2016
Vitamin D2 – New Perspectives in Drawing, PHAIDON, 2013