That's the cultural drill these days, as artworks denounced as repugnant and grotesque end up, by virtue of their highly publicized unpleasantness, drawing far more attention than would have been the case without the stinging put-downs by politicians and religious leaders. Any kind of intense debate about art and culture is essentially positive. Increasingly, the question isn't so much whether a certain work is terrific or mediocre, but whether it should exist at all. We live in a society where people have almost tragic expectations that things will always go their way, that they'll always have money in the bank. Life isn't that way.
Art is about the joy of life and the tragedy.
His sentiments presumably aren't shared by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and representatives of religious faiths who are outraged by the Brooklyn Museum's show and its incendiary content. Along with Ofili's painting, works singled out for censure include Damien Hirst's exhibit of vivisected animals and Dinos Chapman's mannequins of young girls whose facial features have been replaced by male genitalia. These tussles over art have a familiar ring. A similar issue flared in 1994 when New Yorker critic Arlene Croce famously refused to review a dance piece by performers who were HIV-positive. Society's discomfort with what is perceived as dangerous art isn't going to go away, said Hilton Kramer, editor of the New Criterion and prominent spokesman for conservative causes.