I'm not a huge art-nerd, I used to have a pretty strong interest in Art History but I'm not so up on the most modern stuff. I'm in a class now about the Modernist period, particularly literature but we're look at some Modernist art too and a lot of it was about pushing the boundaries of what people thought was acceptable. In the Modernists time something like a toilet on a podium or something would be shocking and artistic. Because something as personal and "unsanitary" as going to the washroom was outside the realms of discussion and what was socially acceptable to be portrayed in public. Displaying things like was meant to horrify people and force them to think about the way they do things.

It seems like art now a days is similar in theory, but inevitably as time goes on we all have become so much less sensitive to just about everything that it's nearly impossible to shock us without bounding in on some kind of human rights issue that would just be beyond social standard and start to pose as a hazard to someone/thing's well-being. Artists I think are sort of at a loss for ways to make their art stand out and matter because we as a global society are difficult to stir up.

Just my (very limited) understanding anyway.

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KATE.