Founded in 2004 by Reena and Abhijit Lath, Akar Prakar traces its roots to a family of Indian modern and contemporary art collectors, spanning three generations.

Engaging in transcultural histories through collaborations with international museums and curators, Akar Prakar has created a space for indigenous representations from Indian modern and contemporary artists.

Operating between its two galleries, in Kolkata and New Delhi, Akar Prakar curates narratives drawn from the subcontinent’s modern and contemporary art movements. In the recent past, we have expanded our curatorial focus to include emerging and historical narratives of Southeast Asian art and culture.

Over the years, Akar Prakar has participated in exhibitions at institutions and museums in different parts of the world, including the 8th Berlin Biennale; Documenta 14; Musée des Arts asiatiques, Nice; Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet, Paris; DRAF, London; and Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Asia Week New York 2020, to name a few.

Other than curating exhibitions of Indian modern and contemporary artists, Akar Prakar has been involved with publishing projects in the form of monographs and books on masters such as S. H. Raza, Gopal Ghose, Sarbari Roy Chowdhury, Meera Mukherjee, and Ganesh Pyne, among other titles. Our books are co-published and distributed by Mapin Publishing.

In 2019, Akar Prakar has launched the first edition of ‘artVarta Research and Publishing Grant’, a new initiative of the Lath Sarvodaya Trust, Kolkata, which has been actively engaged with arts patronage for the past five decades. This Grant supports the work and research of emerging scholars, curators and artists in the field of publishing in arts and culture.