... put the Arts in a bad way would be wrong. What can be said for sure is that postmodern art has gone too far in stirring controversy and shocking its audience for it to any longer be considered art. Also, that they are two broad reasons for this decline. The Encyclopedia Encarta describes the aims of Dadaists' (the first postmodern artists) works as "... designed to shock or bewilder, in order to provoke a reconsideration of accepted aesthetic values," which is a misnomer for much of what we have seen produced to date (Encarta, 2001, p. 6). A recent article in the Toronto Star has challenged the parameters of postmodern art with its piece, subtitled: "Public autopsies, baby eating, and bog people... hot exhibits bait our fascination and disgust" (Star, 2003, H1). Human bodies are just that, neither artifact nor art and exhibiting them "is running up against some of ...

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