Bárbara Moura, Katharina Löffelmann, Ūla Šveikauskaitė, Jehi Natali, Antonio Semeraro, Andrea Scharf, Axel Schindler, Linda Steiner, Markus Tozzer

Politically correct behaviour is one of the most important norms in many European societies. To label certain behaviour and actions as correct facilitates the perception and recognition of wrong behaviour, which can often result in offending other social groups. At the same time, guidelines for correct behaviour reveal the variants and dangers of incorrect behaviour and action. When multifaceted and subjective issues such as religion, sexuality and politics come to the fore, where the terms “correct” and “wrong” are difficult or impossible to use, many can fall into insecurity, which can turn into distanced caution to avoid offending others.

If one is not informed about the constantly occurring developments of individual social groups, which mostly concern language, it is only possible to circumvent defamation by distancing oneself from specific actions and statements. This should guarantee the rights and freedoms of others and enable an exchange with different individuals.

Works of art that have offensive capabilities show that this individual emotion does not necessarily have to be part of the work, but that personal defamation represents a statement about the cultural values and political as well as social questions of the viewer. Whether the viewer feels defamed or to what extent, is based on individual experiences and perspectives.

Generally speaking, it can be said that provocative/offensive art has the goal of freeing the viewer from his familiar surroundings and environment and of questioning individual action and thinking. But is it possible to define and limit this art in more detail? In the exhibition No offense, but… the artists try to pursue this question and take part with works which they themselves perceive as offensive or which they perceive as offensive for the viewer. The reaction of the audience is thus part of the exhibition, whose personal view of offensive functions as a measure of its own. The individual and thus also subjective emotion is directly provoked and made personally tangible to the recipient. In addition, it is possible to question in direct exchange what can be generally offensive and what is based on personal views and experiences. The multi-faceted emotion of “feeling offended” is put into different individual contexts, in which the viewer has the possibility to question his own personal feeling and to view it from a different perspective.