It is perfectly possible for a work of art to display...
Just shock-tactics, at the cost of better art
Who determines whether something is too disgusting? It is also hard to separate a piece of work’s artistic merit from its impact. It is perfectly possible for a work of art to display great technical competence, and yet fail to have an emotional impact on its audience, and so as a consequence it seems most sensible to allow, display and fund as wide a display of art as possible. Limiting the forms of art that we display or give funding to those considered ‘artistically meritorious’ will result in the loss of innovation in the art world: if we only encourage those pieces that are ‘good’ under present-day metrics, we lose those pieces of art that, though considered controversial, or ‘not art’ now, may in the future be considered masterpieces (e.g. Picasso’s Guernica).