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Shock long ago went mainstream, raising a question: Can art still shock today? Nudity and raw language are no longer scandalous, and decades of Modernist assaults on formal constraints have dissolved the boundary between art and not-art, high and low. The outcry over “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and “Tropic of Cancer” seems downright quaint at a moment when millions of suburban mothers are devouring the sadomasochistic fantasy “50 Shades of Grey.”

Today shock can seem indistinguishable from scandal, less a side effect of artistic innovation than a ploy ginned up by self-promoting artists and public scolds. But many artists say that generating shock remains the duty of anyone who aims to reflect the real world back at itself. Audiences may be more sophisticated, and jaded, but it is still possible to show them something they may not want to see.