Regarding that Ryder Ripps art piece where he hired Craiglist sensual masseuses to make drawings on paper in a NY hotel that was underpaying him to be an artist-in-residence. It's certainly not any more "offensive" than the Andrew Norman Wilson piece where he collaborated remotely with a mechanical turk-style worker in Bangalore to make an artwork. Both involve A-list white dude artists exposing civilians-just-trying-to-get-by to the glories of conceptual art. The Ripps work had more of a sleazy sexual dimension, but then, so do hotels.
Wilson got away with it -- as far as I know, his reputation is untouched. Ripps didn't, at least with his erstwhile promoters Art F City and Rhizome. Both repudiated him and hoisted him onto the pillory of politically correct sanctimony. The righteousness of these dismissals was off the charts. Real Cotton Mather stuff, except Mather didn't use mealy-mouthed phrases like "ethically unsound." This is an artist, not a politician, he's not held to the same standards of public trust and you don't talk about his work in the same disgraced tones you would if a Congressman sent dick pics to a girlfriend.
It's especially ripe that the two organizations in question "made" Ripps with fawning coverage, in happier times. Rhizome flattered him by offering his Facebook downloads as an "art" giveaway to subscribers and nominated him for a "Prix Net Art", while AFC's Paddy Johnson praised his honesty and candor in an adoring profile, among other plugs.
Message to artists: "One work of art that slightly embarrasses us and you're a dead person."