At We Make Money Not Art, they had an interesting look into how the contemporary art scene has gotten a little bit out of hand: everything from artists who make a ton of money by embracing their own hype to those who question the capitalistic nature of the art world and it's affects on originality.
Seems to me there has always been ramifications of creating your art for a specific reason or audience. To have an objective like that always calls into question the integrity of the idea - has it been compromised so that it's easier to sell? Does it shock, just for the purpose of standing out among the rest of the pieces in the gallery? Maybe this is like the Chinese hip hop post. The more famous you become, the less you can actually say because of all the things that are now at stake.
A gallery - Art, Price and Value - was created to discuss some of these issues from the artist's point of views. From the gallery website:
In the last twenty years contemporary art has become a specialised industry with its own rules and a network of professional operators. Artists are drawn into the international dynamics of a highly competitive system. This places them in competition with artists from widely different backgrounds but demands they speak a global and commercial language. In recent years with the growing interest of collectors, galleries and institutions in the west it has become the ideal environment for speculators. With pressing demands for the new and sensational, the process of production and commercialisation is speeded up but art is also increasingly drawn into mass culture and commerce
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