The wall of a jail cell, smeared with excrement as an act of protest, was filmed with such compositional care that it became, in effect, a work of abstract art, allowing us to forget what it actually was: human waste, applied with human rage, and surely unbearable to the human nose.

NEWYORKER: Hot and Bothered

The effect is disorientating: instead of just looking at the work of art, you are enveloped by it.

ECONOMIST: Brazilian art

To produce an unimaginative or derivative work of art, therefore, will not have as desirable an effect on potential partners.

ECONOMIST: Come up and see my etchings

"The effect would be fairly catastrophic, " says James Watt, head of Asian Art at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

FORBES: Pot (Early Ming Dynasty) Calls U.S. Kettle Black

By denying its musical and artistic merit, hip hop's critics get to have it both ways: they can deny the legitimate artistic standing of rap while seizing on its pervasive influence as an art form to prove what a terrible effect it has on youth.

NPR: Author Comes to Hip-Hop Music's Defense