International Section at the Cosmoscow Fair: Contemporary Art from India and Iran

The 14th edition of the Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair will take place on September 4–6, 2026, on two floors of the Timiryazev Centre (6/1, Verkhnyaya Alley). Collectors and representatives of the art community will be able to see the exhibition first at the Preview on September 3. Cosmoscow is supported by General Partner Sber: GigaChat and Sber Private Banking, Automobile Partner VOYAH, and companies including Hutton, MR, ēdomo, Lamoda, Beluga, Tête de Cheval, 12 STOREEZ, Azbuka Vkusa, Konstantin Chaykin, Geltek, Mistral, Chupa Chups, Kids Program’s partner Kenguru, The Carlton, Moscow, Blessed Mess, Moscow Medicine, the official Insurance Partner SberInsurance, Technical Partner MONTAZHNIK, and the Official Water company edis.

The fair will occupy 17,010 square meters, spanning two floors and the courtyard of the Timiryazev Centre. Visitors will see 113 gallery booths, over 20 partner projects, and 9 non-profit cultural projects. The Cosmoscow Talks program will be held in the Lecture Hall and Media Forum. Kangaroo will prepare the Cosmoscow Kids area for young visitors, offering workshops, games, and creative activities.  

In 2026, Cosmoscow’s international component will be further developed. The fair will feature two Indian galleries, a special project with an Iranian gallery, and a collectors’ project dedicated to contemporary and traditional Indian art.

“Cosmoscow continues to develop international professional connections and expand its geographic reach. This year, the international section will bring together the contemporary art scenes of India and Iran, and the fair itself will become a platform for cultural and professional exchange, introducing Russian audiences to the artistic practices of these countries,” says Margarita Pushkina, founder of the Cosmoscow institutional platform.

ART INCEPT 

A dynamic contemporary art gallery in India, focused on identifying and representing compelling emerging voices from South Asia. Since its founding in 2020, the gallery has built a strong reputation for discovering artists early in their careers and working closely with them to develop enduring practices, institutional recognition and a meaningful collector base.

Its programme brings together artists rooted in contemporary experience, often drawing on the diverse cultural, social and material landscapes of South Asia. The gallery is particularly committed to looking beyond established metropolitan centres, bringing new and distinctive voices into wider national and international conversations.

Through sustained curatorial engagement, exhibitions, mentorship, grants, residencies and institutional collaborations, ART INCEPT actively shapes careers rather than simply presenting finished practices. This approach has established a strong track record of artistic and market growth among its artists. The gallery has participated in major fairs including India Art Fair, Art Mumbai and London Art Fair, and is increasingly focused on bringing the depth and diversity of contemporary South Asian art to international audiences.

Artist presented at Cosmoscow 2026: Jit Chowdhury, KM Khushboo, Ram Dongre, Rinky Choudhary, Sunil Yadav.

THRESHOLD ART GALLERY

Established in 1997 by Tunty Chauhan, the gallery has developed a distinct identity defined by curatorial rigour over trends and sincerity over scale. Over three decades, the gallery has fostered an environment of growth and exchange for emerging and mid-career contemporary voices whose practices are reflective and process-driven, offering sustained engagement with artists’ evolving practices through dialogue, documentation and institutional visibility. THRESHOLD’s commitment to supporting artistic practice as process and not just presentation has shaped its programming collaborating with leading cultural institutions, museums, and foundations; publishing artist monographs and catalogues; and convening talks, symposiums, and residencies, including Mapping Memories, its ongoing travel-residency project. In an art world increasingly organised around spectacle, THRESHOLD offers an alternative: a place of integrity and considered maturity, a platform for blazing new trails by crossing the ‘threshold’ between the known and the possible.

THRESHOLD’s Russia journey began with India Reflections (In artibus Foundation, Moscow, 2023), curated by Tunty Chauhan for collectors Andrey and Ekaterina Terebenin. In 2025, THRESHOLD co-curated Cosmoscow’s special project How the Spirit Becomes Matter, and piloted a residency for artists Anindita Bhattacharya and Sumakshi Singh in collaboration with the Terebenins and the Hermitage Museum. This relationship deepened into Contemporary Art from India — the Hermitage’s first-ever contemporary Indian art exhibition in 260 years, co-curated by Marina Schulz and Tunty Chauhan, on view October 2026. This year, THRESHOLD returns to Cosmoscow with its most robust presentation at the fair to date, including works by two artists from a residency organised by THRESHOLD in collaboration with Cosmoscow, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Suzdal’s MIRA Creative Community, and Dvara (Non-Commercial Organisation).

Artist presented at Cosmoscow 2026: Anindita Bhattacharya, Michal Glikson, Madhukar Mucharla, Pandit Khairnar, Ravikumar Kashi.

“Dvara: Conceptual Weaving” Special Project

At the Cosmoscow fair, Ekaterina and Andrey Terebenin will present a special project, “Dwara: Conceptual Weaving", dedicated to the dialogue between traditional and contemporary Indian art. The exhibition features works from the pair’s collection, combining works by contemporary Indian artists with traditional hand weaving and embroidery.

The project explores how craft traditions continue to evolve in a contemporary artistic context. Indian artists turn to handcrafted techniques not as a frozen legacy, but as a living artistic language, blurring the boundaries between craft and conceptual art.

“We just returned from the Russian North, where we were once again struck by the art of wooden architecture, one hundred percent folk, rooted in the depths of centuries and tradition, yet invariably penetrating the soul. A quote we encountered in a 16th-century chapel stuck in my mind: the architect Karetnikov, in the early 20th century, wrote of Russian northern creativity that it ‘was never stagnant or deadened; on the contrary, it sparkled with life and diversity. One form gave way to another only when those forms had completed a certain cycle, when they had said all that had to be said, it was an evolution, a transformation of one form into another.’” say Ekaterina and Andrey Terebenin.

“Persian Art: Dialogue of Generations” Special Project

For the third consecutive year, Persian art is represented at the Cosmoscow fair, allowing visitors to appreciate the richness and diversity of Iran’s artistic tradition and influencing the development of cultural exchange between the two countries.

This year, the ‘Persian Art: Dialogue of Generations” project will be presented by the ARTSUN Gallery in partnership with the international project ArtHall. This collaboration focuses on the consistent presentation of both recognized masters who shaped the language of Iranian modernism and contemporary artists rethinking cultural memory, tradition, and the experience of the present.

ARTSUN Gallery 

The gallery represents artists from different generations, working with painting, graphics, sculpture, and objects, and also develops exhibition and collection initiatives that reveal the depth and diversity of the Iranian art scene.

For the Russian audience, the Cosmoscow stand will offer the opportunity to see Iranian art not as a local or exotic phenomenon, but as an independent part of the international artistic process.

Artist presented at Cosmoscow 2026: Mohammad Fassounaki, Bijan Ghaseminejad, Elham Nafisi, Farideh Lashai, Aydin Aghdashloo, Reza Derakshani, Sirak Melkonian, Nikzad Nodjoumi, Hossein Kazemi, Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam, Farshid Maleki. 

The international section of the Cosmoscow fair will be presented on the first floor of the Timiryazev Centre.