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A more relevant question is "is it supposed to?" Is the standard of Duchamp the only or highest standard by which we assign artistic value?

The best art, I've found, lifts the soul and can even have a transformative effect on the observer. This does not preclude shocking art, but can be achieved even with purely abstract forms without a representative referent, let alone a shocking one.

I think it's time we open a discussion on what we hope to achieve with art, one that involves the Katy-Perry-listening, Marvel-movie-watching public and not just the "art world".




Exactly: did the author of the "Code of Hammurabi" shock? Did the sculptor of the see of Tutankhamen shock? Did Michaelangelo "shoc? Did Bach "shock"?

People did not resort to art as a path for shock. Even pornography (as Herculan and Pompey prove) was not "shocking".

Gore and sex are not important to art. It has other issues more relevant.

The question to me is... Can modern art please? It does not seem to.


You may be trampling jargon. I find plenty of the art here pleasing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art

("contemporary" describes art currently being produced in a less ambiguous way)


Gore and sex are exactly as important to art as the artist and the audience see fit.

You are also conflating how shocking a piece is to the artist's intent to create a shocking piece. They are not necessarily related.


"Shock" doesn't necessarily imply shocking referent. Beethoven was shocking; Monet was shocking; Stravinsky was shocking, but none of them were shocking because of their subject matter. I think the kind of "shocking" art that they created is more what the article's talking about.




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