Art as a positive force - by Bhagyesh Pathak
Sisyphus Notes
SubscribeSign in
Art as a positive force<br>Our current culture has got the art wrong but not all hope is lost
Bhagyesh Pathak<br>Aug 18, 2026
Share
Quick background: Immediately after attending Abhivyakti City Arts Project in Ahmedabad, I began writing this essay in November 2025. The original version was too intense to publish and it has grown into this final version that I’m satisfied with. Since this is a maxxi post, in case it has gotten truncated in your email client, you will need to open it on the web by clicking ‘view in browser’ link.
Every year since 2018, Ahmedabad witnesses one of the grandest celebrations in the city: Abhivyakti City Arts Project. “Abhivyakti” meaning Expression, is indeed a sight. I encourage everyone to visit it. It is not that often such a large arrangement is made for people to experience different art forms.
An exhibit from Abhivyakti 2023<br>While I hold that everyone should visit this multi-week event at least once, I think this year’s (2025) curation was disappointing. May be all large-scale projects suffer from this inevitable descent. In case of Abhivyakti, it is striking because the exhibits were opposite of art. In fact, you should visit it if you want to see what opposite of arts look like. Everyone of us who visited the installation had one of these words at the top of our mind: ugly, dark, and disgusting.<br>It felt as if most exhibitors and performers were in a race to prove who could be uglier, darker, or more depressing. Not to mention un-innovating and uninspiring. (You can see it was so dark that I’m spreading their darkness to you, who hasn’t even visited it. Worry not, this is the first and last negative narrative in this essay.)<br>What is the purpose of art
An uninitiated layman would be fooled by visiting Abhivyakti. He would mistake the anti-art for art. At first, his gut would refuse to consider it art--and he would be right about it. But he would be forced to doubt his gut because those things are in a curated exhibition, making him think “I’m just a normal guy, what would I know about art?”<br>And it is not their fault to feel this way. Because we are trained to think that art is not for a layman. We are trained to think that art needs a high level of interpretation and abstract words and ooh and aah.<br>If you dig a little bit deeper, you’d realize that all this ho-ha and mechanics hide the main question we should be asking ourselves: “what is the purpose of art?”<br>Expression?<br>Catharsis?<br>Rebellion?<br>Entertainment?<br>None of them.<br>Historically, the purpose of art has been to educate, to show the light. That’s the original purpose. All other purposes are transgressions. You know as they say, “one man’s tool is another man’s weapon”. What we see nowadays in the name of art is not a tool, it is a weapon.<br>Art brings us closer to our potential, our virtues. Art educates us about what we could be: emotionally, humanly, socially, intimately. The aspects of our being that cannot be otherwise revealed to ourselves by intellectual exercises. I had heard something to the effect of: intellect’s purpose is to cut and dissect. That’s why we use the adjective “sharp” for intellect. If we have to use our intellect to “understand” art, we are doing something wrong. Art is not about dissecting. It is about integrating with our being by feeling it.<br>The gate-keeping of art
If the real purpose of art is to educate and show the light to people, why does understanding art feel like a chore? Like a riddle? Like arithmetic? That’s a valid question because if you think about it, what does an archetypal art-connoisseur look like? Just close your eyes and imagine how he would look like? He confidently stands in front of abstract dabs of paint on a canvas, in a silent art gallery. And seems to be deciphering a difficult riddle. He looks intelligent, sophisticated and a person with “taste”.
But, nine times out of ten, the piece he is standing in front of is not a piece of art. And he himself is not art-connoisseur. Standing in front of a broken toilet commode in a junkyard and acting to make sense of it doesn’t convert the junk toilet into an art piece and the actor into art-connoisseur.<br>The art-connoisseur is a self-appointed gate-keeper. He acts as an arbitrator of art. If he says your creation is a piece of art, then it is a piece of art. If he concludes that your creation is not a piece of art, then it is not art.<br>And you have no say in it. Because the art-connoisseur might have studied (or gathered through experience) different types of arts and their histories. He might be knowing the names of artists that you can’t even pronounce, let alone remember. He might have learned artsy vocabularies that go over your head. And this authorizes him to be the arbitrator of art?<br>By the same logic, a food connoisseur should be an authority to tell us which food is tasty and which one is not. It sounds ridiculous right? Because it is.<br>So...