[4][5] Her interest in art was piqued after visiting museums in her hometown with her father during her childhood.

[7] Gablik wrote articles for Art in America (for which she was the London correspondent for fifteen years),[8] ARTnews (1962–1966),[8] Times Literary Supplement,[9][10] and The New Criterion,[11] as well as for blogs.

[20] Gablik's The Reenchantment of Art announced her disenchantment with "the compulsive and oppressive consumeristic framework in which we do our work," and argued that a re-connection to the primordial and to ritual might allow "for a return of soul.

"[21][22] Instead of traditional forms of religion, however, Gablik sought out contemporary art that she believed broke out of the Western framework, championing the work of artists such as Frank Gohlke, Gilah Yelin Hirsch, Nancy Holt, Dominique Mazeaud, Fern Shaffer and Otello Anderson, Starhawk, James Turrell, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, in the book and in subsequent critical writing.

From 1976 to 1979, she participated in U.S. International Communications Agency lecture tours in India, Hungary, Pakistan, and countries of South Asia.