However, unless social changes beyond our present knowledge overtake us, certain other trends must be noted. In the coming century, our art is likely to have a broader base. This means that the monopoly of a handful of fashionable artists is not likely to survive. A far larger number of good artists will emerge not only out of our art schools, but also from among our more innovative folk artists, some ofwhom are already visible in the Craft Village and Bhopal Artists' exhibitions. For it is they whose needs will provide the impetus for events to develop in the early decades of the next century. They will be forced to change radically.

This means that the art investor will have a much broader range to choose from. Names will mean less and less and trends will be more important. In such a climate, art movements will be more important than individuals or coteries of artists. The investor will then have to be more aware of these and choose his or her collection thematically in terms of these trends. Even if he or she chooses to spread the risk over a wide range, it should not be done at the cost of losing direction. Such a sequence of events would lead to buying irrelevant but gimmicky works with no value in the secondary market except as curios or junk.

Therefore, some of the trends that will emerge may be noted. The most important trend that is likely to emerge is in the field of the democratisation of thevisual media. Art will no longer be something that cannot be understood. It will invite the viewer to physically participate in the process of understanding it. This can be accomplished by creating installations that people participate in, like Valsan Kalleri's huge wire-mesh dustbin sculpture that viewers were expected to fill up with waste like plastic bags, used tissue paper, empty cigarettes packets and the like. Or it could be sculptures with different ways of being understood through use -- like Atul Sinha's sculptures that can serve as bottles, chairs, night lights and the like, or Pooja Broota's table top sculpture. While the works are very much art, the aspect of use is built into them as a way to penetrate their internal dynamics. Clearly this approach of bringing contemporary art to a broader section of people has a future.

Another element that is likely to see development is the portrayal of the crowd. The crowd, as anyone who has studied history knows, is its motive force. But it is only in thetwentieth century that the masses, who have always been used as an instrument of change actually become force that guides it. The next century will see the crowd emerge in all its splendour, not only bringing about about changes but actually directing them as well. This trend will become stronger in the twenty first century. So artists who concern themselves with the crowds and its many faces are likely to find a place in twenty first century art. Among them, one can number the early works of Vivan Sundaram, Debabrata De, Apoorva Desai and the graffiti series of Arpana Caur.

A number of artists among these also reflect another trend linked to the crowd, that of not drawing upon exotic sources as imagery but on that available in the life of people around one. In the West this developed as `Pop' art of the sixties and seventies. In India it has an earlier development in artists like Jamini Roy, who instead of borrowing from Picasso and African sculpture, found the same directness of expression in thepata-chitra of Bengal. So we can expect more subtle borrowings from our own folk and tribal traditions, not as exotica, but as aesthetic languages we can gift the global village with. The tradition of Santiniketan artists, with Meera Mukherjee as one of the most gifted, will indeed grow to new heights.

Another related trend is the emergence of contemporary artists from folk artists. The first stirrings of this trend are already there in a number of artists like Jangarh Singh Shyam of Bhopal, Ganga Devi from Mithila and Jivya Soma Mashe form Maharashtra. But again this trend is not new. One of our finest artists, Ram Kinkar Baij, was the son of a village barber and masseuse. And we have not been able to create another like him in the last 50 years or so. His works are accessible and very likely to be collectors' items of the next century as are those of Jamini Roy.

Apart from thee major trends, the collector should look out for innovative use of objects, original imagery, and art that treads theno-man's-land between the fine arts and design, because it is this last where the advantages of mass-production without losing quality are most evident. The camera, the computer, the photostat and fax machines have all contributed to improving the quality of multiple copies of creative work. This should, of course, bring the price of art down. For the twenty first century will be one of affordable art for a far wider section of people than ever before in our history. With such a future before us, the buyer who buys junk because of the hard-sell will find himself overloaded with things he will have to pay even to get rid off.