Oscar Wilde famously wrote: “There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.” Some would say that the same could be said about art, that artworks cannot be judged in terms of ethical concepts. This may very well be true when referring to a painting or a sculpture, but art can be so much more than that. Since the advent of modern art, and more specifically, the rise of conceptual art and performance art, the artworks are no longer contained within a wooden frame clad with gold. What constitutes an artwork now stretches beyond the canvas, and what used to be a representation, a fiction, now blends with reality. The performative act is what I call the process when actions become part of the artwork itself, and it is within this process that the ethical has a potential to emerge. Is it permissible to burn rats alive as part of a performance piece? Can it be ethically justified to pay four prostitutes with a shot of heroin in order to tattoo a line across their backs, and present it as Art? Are you, as an audience member, free to treat an artist however you like, just because it is Art and the artist gave you permission? When viewing controversial works of art through the lens of ethical theories some fascinating things emerge. It highlights an aspect of art that is poorly understood, especially in the media. It brings nuance to what the idea of artistic freedom actually entails, while also shining a light on the ethical double standards our society holds.

*The Art of Cruelty is written and published in Swedish under the name Grymhetens konst – Etiska reflektioner kring kontroversiella konstverk.