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For my part, the difference between what Mueck's work is representative of, and what the works Sharon referred to imply, is the "simplistic duality" of good and evil. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment which followed still resonate in our time with the premise that mankind is essentially good, and the human condition can ever be bettered. It is the essence of democratic principles, and the perennial promise that redemption from what is despicable in the human condition is possible.
Nihilism which is the bed-rock of modernism refutes that view. It reduces human beings to mechanical creatures without purpose, inevitably bound to submit to the worst inclinations of their base, brutal natures. The horror that was WW I, and all the subsequent atrocities that escalated through the 20th century and into the present day underscore that rationale . . . and its "aesthetic" is of needs, guts, blood, fecal matter and garbage. The message is that humanity is ugly, loathsome and reprehensible, and there is no hope.
Ergo, the pervading thematic in most cow-college art departments nationwide prescribes that in order for art to have "meaning" and "depth", it must be ugly, and deal with the scatological.
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