Shamelessness is not talent
We live in a time where a person’s ability to be shocking, edgy and attention-grabbing is somehow equated with talent. It used to be that art was about skill. Now its value is often measured on the Richter scale of reaction.
While audacity maybe found as a subset of Art in many Venn diagrams, it’s not necessarily a requirement, nor should talent be presumed in its presence.
Sure, Art can be what you say and it can also be how you say it.
The artist must ride the fine line between the message and the messenger.
Just because you say something in a shocking way doesn’t automatically make what you say worthy of the attention it may garner. Shocking merely to reinforce or emphasis the ability to do so wears thin quickly.
It doesn’t take a deft touch to shock, but it does take care and thought to provoke in less overt ways.
Using obscene language, nudity and/or confronting imagery without strong justification of its merit as a way to accentuate the point of the artistic statement as a whole is not art. It is easy to provoke outrage with violent, anarchistic, pornographic or ugly images and a lazy way to attract attention.
It is easier to throw overtly confronting material into a viewer’s path, attract attention…
