An idea I think about sometimes:

The artist and the art are not the same and should be judged as such

Too often people conflate the two

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Another interesting pt is that banning an artist bc they are immoral implies that we are looking to artists for moral guidance. 

But it’s not clear that that there should be any kind of relationship bt aesthetic genius and moral insight. 

When it does happily happen (eg Shakespeare) — we should thank the gods.

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Great pt. When the artist becomes famous, their responsibility not as an artist but *as a human* increases. 

The question, I guess, is whether the artist should prioritize the act of a good artist (art) or the act of a good human (morality). 

This sometimes gets explored in art itself (eg, recently, in the film Tár)

It seems we enforce moral standards on artists not because they are artists, but because they are celebrities. It’s implied these artists are famous, bc we wouldn’t even know their moral ineptitudes if they weren’t. 
And that looks like a function of the influence they hold.

Agree. One of the beautiful and uncomfortable things about art to me is it’s ability to show me where my moral boundaries lie. Standup comedy is one of my favorite art forms in this respect. If a comic makes a joke that makes me uncomfortable, I don’t judge the comic…they did a great job showing me a boundary