Artist Mehr Afroze once said in an interview: “Art is not what you do, but an artist is what you become.” A journalist, a doctor, an inventor, a philosopher, a Sufi, a poet or an artist — once they have adopted a certain path will forever see the world and its events through that prism. At the site of a road accident, the doctor will immediately see to the injured, a policeman will collect evidence, the journalist will investigate the story, a poet will find words to express his emotions and an artist will make a visual impression.

Is art a way of being, of thinking or a profession? The word ‘professional’ started as a vow from the Latin ‘professus’ — to profess one’s skill to others. From the early 20th century, the word ‘professional’ came to be linked with an economically rewarded occupation.

Should a poet who composes for his diary or a few friends not be recognised as a poet until he has published or presented his kalaam in a mushaira? Is my mother, who has been painting for the last 20 years, but has never exhibited her work, not an artist?

Sometimes artists are only known for one work and musicians for one song. Andy Warhol believed “everybody only does one painting anyway.” We chose to remember Leonardo da Vinci as an artist rather than an inventor although he produced only 15 paintings and hundreds of inventions. Arthur Rimbaud, the 19th-century French poet, abandoned poetry at the age of 21. But his six-year career became highly influential in French literature. Bashir Mirza’s real contribution to Pakistani art was his ‘Lonely Girl’ series of the 1970s.

The art gallery as an architectural space was established by Sir John Soane for the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817. The format of interconnected rooms with uninterrupted wall space continues to define the art gallery and contributes to the perception of art as an object to be potentially purchased.

From its earliest beginnings, art was intended as experience rather than an object, whether a carving on ritualistic objects, the walls of a church, depiction of a deity in a temple, or to create a sense of awe and the presence of power in palace halls. In our times, land artists (who sculpt the landscape itself), performance and installation or graffiti artists and the many ephemeral public art events recall the role of art as experience. But they are still pressured into exhibiting documentation of these in art galleries in the form of photographs, videos or documents, in order to earn recognition for themselves.

Howard Becker, in his paper “Art as Collective Action” asks, “How little of the activity necessary for the art can a person do and still claim the title of artist?” A social consensus agreed by the artist, the audience and the arbiter is required and “art worlds differ in how they allocate the honorific title of artist and in the mechanisms by which they choose who gets it and who doesn’t.” Sudden changes are considered an attack, a moral affront on audiences and arbiters until the changes themselves become conventions.

The art gallery as an architectural space was established by Sir John Soane for the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817.

Evelyn Payne Hatcher, in her book Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art, takes a broader look at the social contexts of art production in various cultures. For Navajo Indians, sand painting is a spiritual activity where the process of making is important and not the product, which is destroyed as soon as it is completed. In other cultures art is woven with dress, ritual and the body itself. Is art intended as “spectacle” or as expression of social, spiritual and aesthetic experience?

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi Email: durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 27th, 2019