Even the greatest philosophers make serious errors and the greatest error that we are still living with comes from Immanuel Kant. In distinguishing between things as they appear and things as they really are Kant made a calamitous error in claiming that things as they really are can never be known. In effect he denied that divine revelation can be a source of knowledge and therefore that we should only consider phenomena. It was this idea more than any other that gave rise to modernism. But of course if you believe that things as they really are can not be known then it will only be a matter of time before people deny that things as they really are even exist - thus was born post-modernism.
For the post-modernist there is only experience and sensation, there is no Truth and so sensation becomes the only value. The result is that everything is judged only by its ability to grab one's attention and hence the artist is forced into one or more of the following positions: originality, sensationalism or the self. Originality demands that the artist be different to all other artists. Consequently he severely restricts what he is able to do as repetition of others or even himself does not grab attention and is therefore of no value. Sensationalism, the basest form of `art,' grabs one's attention through spectacle, offensiveness and breaking taboos. But then, when the audience becomes desensitised to the offence, the artist pushes the limits further and degrades himself and his audience even more. But the third option, depicting yourself, is the ultimate in differentiation since no one has lived exactly the same life as you. Therefore if one becomes completely self obsessed one becomes different and therefore might hold the audience's attention for slightly longer.
The real disaster with this type of thinking is that people become desensitised quickly and so the artist constantly struggles to outdo other artists in his grab for attention. Originality becomes ever more silly and pointless, sensationalism becomes ever more amoral and then immoral and self-centredness becomes ever more perverse. The post-modern artist is like a junky that, as soon as he becomes habituated to one dose of smack must start injecting ever more junk for the same effect. Eventually of course he becomes a prostitute in order to get enough junk to sustain his habit.
The solution to this artistic prostitution is to deny Kant's mistake and return to Truth. Instead of self-centredness the artist looks within himself to see what he has in common with all mankind. Instead of sensationalism the artist depicts Truth and Beauty. And, instead of pointless originality, the artist shows the viewer his place within Creation. Only then can an artist be free, since every junky is a slave.