An apt comparison would be asking a lay person (or in the case of your idea: a victim of a rocket attack) to give their judgement on the design of a rocket. Sure they’d have an opinion, but do they have the context and experience necessary to say whether it’s a good or bad design? Nope.

Obviously knowing how to analyse a rocket design is vastly more complex than knowing how to analyse art, but the bottom line is that a range of specialised knowledge is required to properly deconstruct things in different fields and an understanding of prior cases of public outrage at the work of artists really helps analysis of new work. Most people in the general public lack this knowledge.

No one can take your opinion away but at the same time no one can tell an artist not to do something. All you can do is judge for yourself. I loathe artists who try to load meaning into their work to add gravitas but my experience is that most exhibited artists’ main goal is often more about provoking consideration and exploring ideas than making commentary.

Colourful glows in really weird places…

You’re usually right on the money, but you’re off your game here. Son, I am disappoint. :/

I do not believe that artists should be censored. However, I don’t think that the manner in which artists chose to engage the public (especially if they are giving the impression that the work is endorsing a very serious cause)  should be completely absolved from criticism or value judgement either. There are ways to communicate an issue that are more effective than others.

*IF* a given artist’s main goal is to communicate or express something about a given issue, then there is value in assessing whether this goal is being met and to what extent.

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

To all the haters: Please leave your lay-people’s judgements and preconceptions at the door.

I don’t expect most people, including the ‘spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish Association’ to get it but I do kindly ask them to understand their position in this interplay. They are the audience and they are supposed to be offended. If they don’t like it, leave. No one is forcing people to view or like this work.

By creating any work an artist is not implying “this work contains socially acceptable imagery”.. Imagery is a tool, not an expression of moral correctness. I suppose those who wish to eliminate such depictions of Africans think we should just forget that this is how the “developed” world used to represent them. Writing over historical mistakes is an excellent way to ensure they will be repeated. Facing them and treating them as they are is a way we can ridicule those who still agree with them.

It really disturbs me when mainstream commentaries discuss art because it usually says more about the way the dissenters truly view the world than anything else. I would posit that if you are offended by this then at some level you accept the black face, red-lipped caricature of Africans as accurate and that is shameful.

Here’s a link for the vid from RT:
http://rt.com/files/news/screaming-cake-scandal-sweden-352/i83df61bc9a16c67205a4e4d5c93dc860_cake.dv.mp4?download=1

http://www.larryshouseofcakes.com/Images/turtle-candy_37058_1.jpg 

http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/sweden-firestorm-over-cake-art-installation-0022178 

Just as the Queen said to Alice “why sometimes I’ve thought of six outrageous things before breakfast…”

And this is why South Park has ruined a generation for political discussion.