[1][2] Sabapathy has written, researched, documented, and supported contemporary visual art in Singapore and Malaysia for four decades.
[2] From 1971, Sabapathy relocated to Penang to teach for almost 10 years, where he delved into the research of the modern in Malaysian art and created course materials, catalogues, biographies and other texts where there were previously none.
[2] He also established a close friendship with fellow art writer and educator, the late Redza Piyadasa, with whom he co-curated exhibitions and collaborated on numerous publications.
[6][7] In 1973, three years after the meeting in London with Toh, the art history programme and university museum set up by Sullivan and expanded by his successor William Willetts was shut down.
[2] Besides lecturing at NUS, Sabapathy also began teaching at the Nanyang Technological University's School of Art, Design and Media in 2006.
In 2007, he began lecturing at the National Institute of Education, teaching about the modern and the contemporary in the art of Southeast Asia.
[2] At each of these institutions, however, Sabapathy’s programmes were often limited to introductory modules despite repeated attempts of his to have school administrators and heads recognise the importance of the study of art history as an academic major.
[3] His intellectual leadership was critical in other exhibitions such as Pago-Pago to Gelombang: 40 Years of Latiff Mohidin at the National Museum Art Gallery in 1994, as well as Thomas Yeo: A Retrospective (1997), Trimurti and Ten Years After (1998–99), and 36 Ideas from Asia: Contemporary South-East Asian Art (2002), all held at SAM.
Sabapathy would go on to establish Asia Contemporary in 2015, an independent Southeast Asian art research institute, and headed it as its founding director.
[4] The book built on lectures Sabapathy had given at the National Institute of Education, which traced the academic landscape in Singapore and elsewhere.
[10] In 2015, at the exhibition 5 Stars: Art Reflects on Peace, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Progress at SAM, Sabapathy's work was presented alongside that of artists Ho Tzu Nyen, Matthew Ngui, Suzann Victor, and Zulkifle Mahmod.