This essay argues that the art student who decides not to be an artist exposes the essential lack in many working artists today: this is the lack of fun, which is necessary for successful art and which—ironically—the artist might find once they leave their craft. Responding to Arjun Appadurai’s essay, “The Ready-Made Pleasures of Déjà Vu: Repeat Viewing of Bollywood Films,” I use Appadurai’s “repeat viewer” to focalize the art student as a figure who is both the repeat viewer and the artist who creates the work of art that solicits repeat viewing to begin with. The art student embodies in his or her own self the transition from the artist to the viewer, allowing for a productive reciprocity whereby the artist performs the role of the viewer and vice versa. I close my essay by reflecting on the art student as a possibility for rethinking India’s political dilemma that concludes Appadurai’s essay.
