Objects May Appear Softer : A Fierce, Feminine Chorus at Black Cube Gallery

There’s a quiet revolution unfolding in Hauz Khas this monsoon—and it’s anything but soft.

From 24th July to 4th September, Black Cube Gallery will host Objects May Appear Softer…, a compelling all-women showcase curated by Sanya Malik, the founder and visionary behind the space. This is not your typical group exhibition. It's a full-bodied, multilayered, deeply intentional gesture—a gathering of 21 Indian women artists, across generations, across mediums, and across the wide emotional terrains that women navigate and transform through art.

And while the title may sound delicate, don’t be fooled. This is a show about perception and its gentle deceits. About how the world too often misreads softness as fragility, and how women—through sculpture, installations, paintings, digital forms and mixed media—push back. Loudly. Elegantly. Unapologetically.

From iconic names like Manisha Parekh, Sujata Bajaj, Hema Upadhyay, and Madhvi Parekh, to rising voices such as Tarini Sethi, Yashika Sugandh, and Hansika Mangwani, the show is a vibrant constellation. Each artist brings her own vocabulary, yet the result is one cohesive, breathing body of work—defiant, precise, and emotionally resonant. These aren't works that politely hang on white walls. They insist on being seen. Really seen.

What binds them is not a single theme, but a shared courage: to disrupt, to dig, to assert. Whether it’s myth reimagined, politics re-examined, or ecology revisited—these works stretch beyond form. They confront the idea of the “female gaze” not as something decorative or gentle, but as layered, embodied, and critically sharp.

Objects May Appear Softer… draws on the familiar line—"objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are"—but reorients it. It invites us to look at the feminine differently. With less assumption. With more attention. Because what might seem ‘soft’ at first glance is often rooted in rigour. And this exhibition makes a powerful case for that truth.

Black Cube Gallery, launched in February 2025 in New Delhi, has quickly carved out a space for itself in the capital’s art scene—not as a white-cube temple, but as a thinking space. A space where voices collide, evolve, and make noise. Under Sanya Malik’s curatorial lens, the gallery has become known for challenging traditional hierarchies, nurturing both legacy and experimentation with equal intent.

Sanya herself comes from a rich lineage of artistic exposure, having grown up around legends like Krishen Khanna and Himmat Shah. Her academic grounding from Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art in London is evident not just in how she curates, but in how she listens—to material, to memory, to movement. And Objects May Appear Softer… feels like a culmination of that listening.

More than anything, this show is about presence. The presence of women who have long shaped the landscape of Indian art—not as afterthoughts, but as central forces. It reminds us that resistance doesn't always roar. Sometimes, it whispers through pigment. It lingers in texture. It stares back from the canvas. And it holds.

So if you're in Delhi this season and want to feel something—something real, thoughtful, and potent—make your way to Hauz Khas. Take your time. Look closer.

Because sometimes, the most powerful objects don’t announce themselves loudly. They just refuse to leave you.

Exhibition Details

Black Cube Gallery, G12A, 2nd Floor, Hauz Khas, New Delhi

24th July – 4th September

Tuesday to Saturday, 12 PM to 6 PM