LONDON—Like the sprawling subcontinent itself, modern and contemporary Indian artists have a marvelously bold way with color, and they produce work that is resonant with their region and with the Indian past. This makes much of the work uplifting, rich, and quite strange to our eyes, which are used, perhaps, to thinking that Indian art consists primarily of exquisite Moghul miniatures.

Yes, many modern Indian masters refer back to the iconography of the past, but a younger generation of artists is more concerned with contemporary issues engendered by the globalization of culture and how it affects their—and our—world.

Auction prices have recently been going through the roof for modern Indian masters such as Laxma Goud, M.F. Husain and F.N. Souza, and the Indian art sales to be held in London this summer will no doubt push prices for these well-known artists even further up the seismic scale. The pace grows; the Serpentine Gallery for instance, is planning an off-site Indian art show in November, as they did with Chinese contemporary art last year at the Battersea Power Station.

If the masters have begun to be taken up by major collectors and institutions, Indian contemporary art is still extremely accessible to the younger collector who does not have unlimited funds. The problem for seasoned and new collectors alike, however, has been that for many years very few Indian artists had representation; indeed, until recently there were hardly any locally owned art galleries in the subcontinent.

Representation is a new concept in India, whose artists have traditionally sold straight from their studios, which could be anywhere in the country, making it virtually impossible for even seasoned and major collectors from abroad to become familiar with the fragmented Indian art scene.

Added to this is the fact that art made in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) or elsewhere in the country has its own quite distinct cultural reference points, so generalization or categorization is virtually impossible.

But guidance, and an opportunity to see Indian art without touring studios in far-off cities or deep in the countryside, is at hand.

The Aicon Gallery, which opened a month ago in London in the former Gagosian Gallery, specializes in Indian contemporary art. An off-shoot of galleries in the United States—in the Flatiron district of New York and downtown Palo Alto, Calif.—Aicon began as the first online gallery of Indian art based in the States. Apart from its three branches, it also runs two private equity funds that invest in contemporary Indian art.

In 2002, Aicon pulled off a coup when it acquired a substantial part of the Herwitz collection of works collected over a 35-year period, which contained major pieces by all the modern Indian masters. The mandate for the new London gallery, however, is to exhibit contemporary Indian art, and its current show “MAN/NAM” is by Adip Dutta—a Kolkata-based artist best-known for sculptural installations that deal with gender and displacement issues. The exhibition represents his U.K. debut.

The highlight of this show is undoubtedly The Requiem, a sequence of Egyptian mummy forms laid out on what looks like a huge light box, printed with images.

Another compelling work is The Mould Confronting the Snake, in which a large, calm genderless figure confronts a rearing cobra, both inlaid with ritualistic written text. A series of sculptural steel wool “garments” are suspended from the ceiling or hung on the wall. Also on view are some exquisitely detailed and delicate drawings, which might be a very good—and inexpensive—way to start collecting Dutta’s intriguing work.

Sneaking into the private clients’ room at the gallery during the show, I also very much liked the flat, rather graphic paintings of Rathin Kanji, who is, according to Director Farah Rahim Ismail, “a very young artist with very young prices.” Kanji’s work concerns itself with the human interface with technology, as well as contemporary cultural tensions between East and West, tradition and modernity, language and image.

He’s an interesting artist in that his work addresses themes common to the new generation of artists working in India today: the increasingly fast pace of urban existence, the 24-hour barrage of information and media that characterizes the modern experience and the loneliness brought on by advancing technology as popular culture becomes a truly global phenomenon. Kanji delineates these themes by means of vivid, saturated color and elegant symbolism—a particularly Indian combination.

The Grosvenor Vadehra is a recent collaboration between Grosvenor Gallery, a well-established London gallery with a history of dealing in modern Indian art, and the Vadehra Art Gallery in New Delhi. Their current show features modern masters, including F.N. Souza, and runs though May 11.

Guidance of another, independent sort can be found through Amrita Jhaveri of AM ART, a Mumbai-based Indian art advisor who really does know what is happening in the Indian art scene, as she herself has been a knowledgeable collector for years. Amrita advises private clients, taking them and an increasing number of curious international curators on studio tours of important and emerging artists. Her book ‘l0l’ Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, published last year, can be hard to locate, as it is the only decent independent guide to the present Indian art scene. It features well-written essays, which are fully illustrated, on the 35 best-selling Indian artists and 66 other important and emerging artists. It also lists every Indian art gallery.  

As an introduction to the entire art scene of the subcontinent, it could scarcely be bettered. I couldn’t recommend it more. While it is very difficult to find, you can buy it online from publishing@ibhworld.com. For other services Amrita offers her clients, go to her excellent Web site, which shows some of her own superb collection in situ.