Exhibitions

Grip, Hold, Pin

15 August – 1 November 2026, Infosys Gallery

Pairing historical objects with modern and contemporary photographic responses, this exhibition examines Indian wrestling as a complex cultural site — tracing how ideas of strength, discipline, spectacle, body and community move across art, popular culture and lived tradition.

I will fight you for it – this is not a new sentiment, and can perhaps be traced back to an innate instinct to take by might that which we cannot easily lay claim to. Think of Bhima’s weeks-long struggle with Jarasandha in the Indian epic Mahabharata or Enkidu wrestling Gilgamesh in the ancient Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh or the Biblical episode of Jacob wrestling the Angel in the dark; imagine the schist relief and Gandhara carvings depicting Buddha wrestling or miniatures showing wrestlers, and you may come to our long and intimate relationship with wrestling and how it has moved from royal courtyards and akharas to other surfaces and mediums – some obvious, some less so. 

Once a momentous sport flourishing under patronage, in the present day, Indian wrestling is under threat. Complex struggles of gender, power, social inequity weaken a form that was already burdened by rapid technological inventions. 

Imagine – the acts of grappling and rolling are wrestling’s most obvious manifestations. But, what are the things that shape and surround it? Do class, community, religion, other threads, as well as an artist’s gaze ask us to reconsider the form? 

Through a curated selection of works by celebrated photographers like the late Raghu Rai, T.S. Satyan and modernist and contemporary photographers like Jyoti Bhatt, Indrajit Khambe and Prarthna Singh, we consider the momentary and invisible that shape the historic in wrestling. 

Step into MAP this August and join us outside the akhara to experience wrestling in a new way.

Sweat and Soil, #18 2018 Motibag Talim, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India 35.56 cm, 53.34 cm