The world of art is no exception. In the name of ``universality'', all sorts of half-digested concepts are being touted around, not the least of which is the passion being exhibited for ``installations''. The installation is a transitory assemblage that carries a message that is expected to bloom in the brain and become part of one's being after the ``moment'' of confrontation. It is a confrontational mode of presentation as opposed to decorative assemblages like floats at European and Latin American carnivals and our own home-bred jhankis. But the difference between art that confronts andderivative or decorative art is hardly understood by those newly converted to this cult. And we have artists incorporating ritual objects and devotional images in a contemporary expression that has nothing to do with the reverential.

In this already over-burdened state of affairs, we have the direct intervention of an auction house like Sotheby's, which has instituted an award for Indian art. And like for all awards, ideally, the judges must be a broad-based group. This was obviously not the case with this award. The award went to Sheela Gowda, avant-garde from the perspective of the 1960s and certainly not original. Apart from her, the husband and wife, Atul and Anju Dodiya, Sudarshan Shetty and N N Rimzon were short-listed for the prize. The Baroda nexus was very visible. This is not surprising as the judges were Saryu Doshi, Jehangir Nicholson and Czaee Shah. The first curated Nicholson's exhibition at the NGMA, which was poorly hung indeed, with little sense of the importance of either the artist or theworks as representative of the time; the second has a gut feeling for art and little else; and the third is known for a poor choice of young artists' creations. Not surprisingly, the award was a non-event.

Indeed, the prizes and short-listed names reflect a complete lack of understanding of the richness and variety of our young artists today. For mastery over colour, one could think of either Chittrovanu Mazumdar from Calcutta or Neeraj Goswami from Delhi. From the South, one can hardly ignore the fusion sculpture of Valsaan Kolleri. And for sheer range of high quality production, there is the sculptor and painter, Atul Sinha, from Delhi. His evolution of the concept of sculpture for use is one of the more original trends we see in our contemporary art.

Then, there is still a strange persistence of a belief that art that sells is commercial and not quite art. What this approach leads to is the promotion of irrelevance, for the principle it is rooted in has no place in the real world. It is like saying aperson who sells his labour power (the majority of people in the world do so today) is no person at all because he or she has sold himself or herself.

All art sells, but some art sells better than others. So indeed, while Sotheby's was promoting the obscure, Bose Pacia in New York was exhibiting Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Abanindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore and Manishi Dey. Delhi Gallery in the Capital was exhibiting the same. But then, what is popular has to be bought with care. Only recently, the National Gallery of Modern Art had to send back a work of Gaganendranath, priced at only Rs 15,000, as it was obviously doubtful. So it is time the buyer also practised some discrimination when buying works of the Bengal School, the Bombay Group and individual artists like Ganesh Pyne, Sailoz Mookerjea, Jamini Roy and, even it seems, Anjolie Ela Menon, for I have heard recently that a number of works that are obviously not hers in style have appeared in the Delhi and Mumbai markets, with her signaturemasterfully forged on them. So it would appear that whoever gets the awards, art that is worth investing in is what people are on the look out for. And what they look for globally in Indian art is that which is relevant to us and not what is bought off the hook in New York, London or Paris. Indeed, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. That goes for art too.