Doha, Qatar: Qatar Museums (QM), in collaboration with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) New Delhi is pleased to announce The Rooted Nomad: MF Husain, an immersive exhibition having recourse to works by Maqbool Fida Husain (1913–2011), one of India’s iconic artists. The title captures the dual essence of Husain’s life — his deep connections to his homeland and his nomadic, cosmopolitan spirit.
Immersive experience at the dual-format exhibition The Rooted Nomad: MF Husain, presented by KNMA for the 2024 Venice Biennale at the Magazzini Del Sale, Venice. © Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
Through his distinguished portfolio of works that weave together myth, memory, and modernity, the exhibition reflects Husain’s vision of India as both an ancient civilization and a postcolonial nation. Drawing upon a reserve of mythologies, shared histories, literature and manifestations, Husain articulated his harmonised vision of a modern India through a lexicon of symbolic iconographies anchored in a secular artistic sensibility. The exhibition will be on view from October 28, 2025 to February 7, 2026.
MF Husain at Nizamuddin, New Delhi, 1995. Photo: Parthiv Shah. Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Collection.
Following its inaugural presentation at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2024, The Rooted Nomad: MF Husain is held at QM Gallery Katara as a fully immersive, multi-sensory experiential project tracing Husain’s itinerant spirit and artistic pursuits from his formative years in India to his last years spent in Doha as a citizen of Qatar.
Immersive experience at the dual-format exhibition The Rooted Nomad: MF Husain, presented by KNMA for the 2024 Venice Biennale at the Magazzini Del Sale, Venice. © Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
The dynamic visual panorama is created from images of more than 80 of Husain’s representative works interlaced with textual material that includes his photographs, drawings, poems, cinema posters, and rarely seen archival material. Central to Husain’s artistic inquiry is a restless consciousness, shaped by a lifetime of movement and encounters that make us dwell upon ideas of mobility, migration, moving across borders and beyond geographical and cultural boundaries.
Acting Deputy CEO of Exhibitions, Public Art, and Rubaiya Qatar and Director of Central Exhibitions at Qatar Museums, Sheikha Reem Al-Thani, said: “Through The Rooted Nomad: MF Husain, Qatar Museums is proud to continue its dialogue with India’s rich artistic heritage in partnership with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. Husain’s vision—spanning continents, histories, and identities—reflects the spirit of exchange that defines Qatar’s cultural landscape today. This immersive exhibition offers audiences a renewed encounter with an artist whose work continues to inspire global conversations on belonging and creativity.”
Immersive experience at the dual-format exhibition The Rooted Nomad: MF Husain, presented by KNMA for the 2024 Venice Biennale at the Magazzini Del Sale, Venice. © Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
Conceived and curated by KNMA and visualised and designed by Visioni Srl, Rome, the immersive experience has been reimagined since its inaugural presentation in Venice to introduce new spatial and sensory experiences. The immersive attempts to unpack expanded notions of the idea of ‘yatra’ or journey, both as a crux to civilizational ethos and artistic calling as well as a metaphor for transformation. The complex production integrates motion graphics, live action, 2D and 3D animation, choreography, and sound design. It offers a deeply humanistic and unifying vision, seamlessly blending Husain’s versatile oeuvre to narrate the complex story of this singular figure while reminding audiences of shared narratives that connect people across geographies and generations.
MF Husain, Karbala, 1990, acrylic on canvas. © MF Husain, 2025. Photo: © MF Husain. Kiran Nadar Museum of Art Collection.
Director and Chief Curator at KNMA, Roobina Karode, said: “We feel honoured to present along with Qatar Museums an immersive on MF Husain, India’s most iconic artist whose inclusive and expansive artistic vision speaks to audiences across cultures. The Rooted Nomad aims to bring to new audiences the creative journey of the artist with his striking composite quasi-abstract language melding calligraphy, idealized motifs from ancient Indian reliefs and folk traditions, pictorially representing varied themes including the Mahabharata, Karbala and The Last Supper with poetic brevity. Our partnering with QM Gallery Katara on this presentation holds a special significance, with Qatar having opened a new chapter of artistic production for the artist.”
The Rooted Nomad: MF Husain is presented as part of Evolution Nation, an 18-month campaign honouring Qatar’s cultural journey over the past 50 years, since the founding of the National Museum of Qatar, and builds on the legacy of the Qatar–India 2019 Year of Culture.
