Our audience looks to us for answers to the unanswerable and clues are hidden within the social, political, philosophical and cultural history surrounding the work. It takes an understanding of multiple histories which can be daunting for a gallery visitor looking to relax on a Saturday afternoon. But because the question (or variation of) comes up almost as often as "where are your public restrooms?", it's begging for discussion. Especially in the context of a public library.

Why do we reject ugliness in the visual arts and tolerate it (or even enjoy it) in the written arts? I find it fascinating that we expect to find written memoirs of struggle, tragic biographies and non-fiction accounts of Abu Ghraib, but recoil when a visual artist depicts racism, genocide, sexual abuse, 9/11 or repulsion for war and the "usually hidden world of soldiers of fortune and government torturers operating throughout the developing world" as Leon Golub did in the 1970s and 80s. He explained to Art in America in 1991, "I think of myself as a kind of reporter; I report on the nature of certain events. I think of art as a report on civilization at a certain time."

Compare and contrast the laughing mercenaries and hooded prisoners in Golub's work with the American soldiers posing with prisoners in the leaked photograhs from Abu Ghraib. The characters are virtually interchangeable and exist 30 years apart. Golub's were an interpretation of horror and yet they could be premonitions of future events (kind-of like Isaac on NBC's Heroes).

I still can't answer these questions, but it might involve how art functions for the individual. Some feel liberated when visual artists capture the dark underbelly of humanity. Others resent it because art has long been associated with leisure, the sublime and the beautiful. Because it makes us feel good. And goodness is what we're seeking from a Saturday afternoon in the museum. Maybe because books have been grouped in such a way a reader knows they won't find scenes of torture in Martha Stewart's Entertaining. I wonder what it would be like if art museums had sections for biography, fantasy, travel, Spanish, New, history, ugly, beautiful. I wonder. I'm still wondering.