In examining the ethical foundations of art practice, questions concerning offense are particularly relevant in the contemporary moment. In an academic context, art that is offensive is generally labeled “transgressive,” but this label falls short of capturing issues concerning offense that are related to artistic practice today. A more generalized concept of offense is needed, which in this context, can be interpreted as the subjective reaction of feeling affronted or upset. The idea of offense has become politicized1 and polarized2 to the point where those who make and view art must concern themselves with ethical questions that lie outside the boundaries of art academia and its labels.
The two poles that divide this concept are derived from two fundamental principles: the right to offend (free speech) and the right not to be offended (hate speech). The breakdown of communication between different groups stems in part from disagreement and confusion about where one right ends and the other begins,3 and perhaps in no other field is this breakdown more pertinent than in the arts. To avoid extremes and return to a more appealing middle-ground, the question must be asked: when is it justified for the offender to offend? And conversely, what should be the consequences of offending?
These questions are critical to maintaining a healthy creative practice. Fear of offense causes artists to self-censor in order to mitigate the risk of falling out of the greater ideological orthodoxy of art criticism and the resulting impact on the artist’s career. This limits the ability of the arts to truly represent and interact with the competing ideologies of the contemporary moment. In academic settings, fear of offense results in both the stifling of potential artistic exploration concerning sensitive topics like identity, politics, and appropriation, as well as the failure to prepare students for the criticism that will inevitably be directed at them in their professional careers. On the other hand, work that causes offense for the wrong reasons runs the risk of distracting, or worse, trivializing the message that the artist is trying to convey. Viewers who encounter offensive work may extrapolate that experience to art in general, harming not just the reputation of the artist, but the arts as a whole.
What is needed is a set of ethical criteria that could be used to inform how those who interact with the arts, whether they be teachers, critics, artists, or viewers, think about the concept of offense. By examining this concept, as well as case studies of controversial contemporary works and the underlying philosophical and sociopolitical arguments that pertain, this paper aims to suggest such criteria.
Of course, attempts to apply categorical rules to art criticism inevitably run up against exceptions to the rule. Because of the infinite conceptual and aesthetic possibilities of contemporary art, as well as the infinite range of subsequent interpretations, the suggested criteria are not to be thought of as categorical, but will instead aim towards general applicability in order to inform creative pursuit of any kind. Also, the issues that the proposed criteria aim to remedy exist primarily within a western dialectic, so these issues will be framed in the context of western contemporary art and discourse. The unique obstacles that eastern artists and audiences have to deal with are significant and deserve attention, but in order to keep the proposed criteria specific enough to be useful, they should be viewed as a contribution to a particularly western set of issues.
As stated, these rights come with their corresponding set of legal principles (free speech vs. hate speech), but the scope of offense is broader than legal definitions. Offense is usually not cited as a legal violation, but a social one. In many instances, the social violation is even at odds with the legal definition. Protests advocating for censorship often do so on the grounds that the artist has violated social rules as opposed to codified laws. Questions of legality are often irrelevant when it comes to the discomfort of the offended or the punishment of the offender, so the proposed concept of offense must be broader than the law. Therefore, this study will focus on implicit social censorship, as opposed to explicit legal censorship. Laws pertaining to freedom of expression (or lack thereof) will be assessed for their moral value, not as legal justification.
In that sense, a “justified” offense is one in which the artist’s actions and intentions are ethical, and in which the results of these actions outweigh the potential consequences of affronting the public’s sensibilities. Because offense, in this context, is interpreted as a subjective response, the proposed arguments do not presume the authority of dictating when it is justified to feel offended. Rather, the central points of this thesis are derived from an analysis of the consequences of offending.
In framing this examination, the criteria put forth should be viewed primarily as an ethical argument. Instead of trying to defend the analysis of the following cases with some claim of infallible objectivity, this paper can instead be viewed as a personal investigation of what makes intuitive sense when it comes to navigating the idea of offense. Obviously, our individual intuitions of what is ethically justifiable can vary, which is why it is necessary to state that the arguments presented are not meant to establish some sort of moral law, but should rather be viewed as a contribution to an ongoing debate concerning the issues of our time.