In Delhi's Defence Colony, a neighbourhood now humming with more than a dozen galleries, XXL is the newest arrival. Dedicated to what it calls "urban contemporary art," and to artists who think and create on an extra-extra-large scale, both in medium and ambition, the gallery's debut show feels at once monumental and intimate.

Sabr, Ghar, Suroor is a posthumous tribute to its founder, Hanif Kureshi -- the street artist known as Daku, and the force behind both St+art India Foundation and Gallery XXL -- who helped turn India's walls into open-air museums. Kureshi died last year of lung cancer, just as he was beginning to paint for himself again.

Hanif Kureshi was the force behind St+art India Foundation and Gallery XXL | Photo Credit: Pranav Gohil

The show brings together 42 never-before-seen works inspired by Kureshi's lifelong love for Indian sign painting, typography, and the visual language of the street: paintings and sculptures made in his Goa studio, where he moved during the pandemic with his partner, hoping to give their son the small-town childhood he once knew in Palitana, Gujarat. These are quieter, more intimate pieces: abstracted studies of letters and light, the bones of a language stripped bare.

Hanif Kureshi's Ghar (2024, UV print on ACP) | Photo Credit: Sohil Belim

Untitled (2024, enamel on MS sheet) | Photo Credit: Zahra

"Hanif's fascination with letters began at 14, painting metal plates in the workshop of Saleem, a local sign painter in Palitana," says Giulia Ambrogi, co-founder of St+art India and Gallery XXL, now based in Brazil, who co-curated the exhibition with Sarah Malik in Delhi. "Those early experiences laid the foundation for his deep relationship with typography." When Kureshi realised the art form was fading, he started The Handpainted Type Project, inviting sign painters from across the country to write every letter and number, A to Z, 1 to 9, which he later digitised and remixed.

Sabr, Ghar, Suroor at XXL | Photo Credit: Zahra

Of lines and letterforms

Inside Gallery XXL's 1,500 sq.ft. space, The Painter Kureshi series hangs like meditations on form itself: type without function, letters freed of meaning. Neons, lines, and shadows recall reflective stickers and fading shopfronts. Several paintings are titled after cities he wandered through, such as Mandawa, Banaras, Modhera, Udaipur -- places that linger in pigment more than in picture.

Painter Kureshi series hangs like meditations on form itself | Photo Credit: Courtesy of the estate of Hanif Kureshi and Gallery XXL

Painter Kureshi series' neons, lines, and shadows recall reflective stickers and fading shopfronts | Photo Credit: Zahra

Language, too, became material, specifically Urdu, a language he couldn't speak but felt drawn to all his life, for its graceful shapes and flowing lettering. In a series of aluminium wall sculptures, Kureshi reimagines the words sabr (patience), ghar (home), and suroor (joy) as forms. "Hanif wore multiple hats as artist, designer, teacher, and mentor to so many. He was always moving, creating, experimenting," says Malik. "That was his sabr, his perseverance. He built a ghar, a home for artists wherever he went, and that's what brought him suroor. The words fit beautifully with who he was, so we named the show after them."

A collage at Sabr, Ghar, Suroor | Photo Credit: Gallery XXL

Then there's Tetris, a series where letterforms appear like falling blocks, half play, half code, perhaps a nod to the video game he loved. "They were made during his time in Uppsala, Sweden, where it was shown," Malik says. "We don't know why he called it that. Some of his paintings are untitled; others verge on architectural -- concrete-like, almost Brutalist -- like letters pushing out into three-dimensional shapes. He kept this part of his practice very private."

Tetris series (2024) | Photo Credit: Courtesy of the estate of Hanif Kureshi and Wildstyle Gallery

A new node for street art

"Since we came together in 2014, we've been able to build a real interest in street art," says Arjun Bahl, co-founder of St+art India and Gallery XXL. "Now, we want to build a market around it. That means exhibitions, but also a collectibles shop we co-create with artists, and bringing them in for workshops and residencies, so they can test ideas and use the space how they want."

After Kureshi's passing, Bahl and his fellow co-founders, Ambrogi and Thanish Thomas, decided to move the gallery from Mumbai to Delhi. "We're a small, guerrilla-style team, and we depend on each other," he says. "While having XXL in Mumbai kept it closer to Hanif's later years in Goa, Delhi has always been home for us. With most of us based here, it made sense to return."

Hanif Kureshi's Raaz (2023, UV print on ACP) | Photo Credit: Courtesy of the estate of Hanif Kureshi and Gallery XXL

A short drive from Delhi's Lodhi Art District, the neighbourhood transformed into India's first open-air art district under the St+art Foundation, Gallery XXL now extends that legacy. Part studio, part gallery, part meeting ground, the space is a new node for street art, showing works by more than 40 artists from India and abroad, many of them Kureshi's longtime collaborators. It's the start of a new chapter in making art, once again, for all.

The show is at XXL till November 30.

The culture writer and editor specialises in reporting on art, design and architecture.

Hanif Kureshi's unseen 42 | 'Sabr, Ghar, Suroor' exhibition at XXL in New Delhi