Alastair Sooke

Philosopher and artist Daisy Dixon discusses her book Depraved, which examines morally troubling art from ancient objects and classical painting to video games and popular music. She describes receiving death and rape threats, including sexualized deepfakes generated through Grok, and argues that misogyny and hostility toward women philosophers have intensified online. Dixon contends that beautiful artworks can still be depraved when they eroticize sexual violence or reinforce structural injustice, citing Titian’s The Rape of Europa as an example while defending Cardi B’s WAP as provocative but not immoral. She rejects censorship and instead advocates “metaphysical iconoclasm”: preserving troubling works while recontextualizing them through counter-narratives, as with Bristol’s toppled Edward Colston statue.