| | On the whole, I do not believe there is such a thing as "harmful" art. Art cannot "harm," it can only express. There certainly can be hateful art, but a great deal of the time this is really not art but propaganda. When you see a guy down south selling little porcelain black guys eating watermelons. When you see a work commissioned by a dictator that replaces the local gods with his image. Hitler's lavish film productions. Piss in a jar isn't harmful art, it's just a crude statement about the art world, and a cruder statement about what the artist is about.
And, there is art that is childish, uninformed, repetitive, and just plain goofy. It makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed-feeling to see the efforts of some artists, because it often reveals immaturities and other personality defects that I really don't want or need to see.
This has been gone around and around for a long time hereabouts, of course. As a point of reference, I will say that most if not all of the art that is considered "good" art by those discussing it here is almost always art that I love dearly. The problem begins when we start moving out of the areas of patriotic art and romantic realism. Often, a deeper understanding of art history is required in order to gain context for the piece; what elements the artist was trying to do in terms of pushing the envelope, in terms of modifying existing elements. In other words, in terms of how they went about trying to innovate, do something that had not quite been done that way before. To add something new to any of the arts is a difficult task- you are doing it in the shadow of all those who came before you. The truth is that actual innovation in art is a needle in a haystack- generally we are dealing with skillful recombination/application of existing elements.
A lot of Objectivists seem to not be content to realize that their taste in art is a taste that is absolutely appropriate for them, but does not mandate total standards. Artists, musicians, and writers do not take kindly to guidelines, because it cramps how they work. Suddenly, they must please others, not themselves. Now, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am convinced that a lot of art, music, and writing that is done clearly shows that those who did it have not done their due dilligence, they have not studied what came before them. Often this is accompanied by a rather arrogant, pseudo-self-esteem-laden rationale about "not wanting to be polluted," etc. I call it laziness. It is true that you have to be careful about being overly derivative. When you are exposed to something that really trips your trigger, it is going to want to heavily affect your style- you will not be working with a rounded sample of all your influence, but more of what you just brushed up against. Being mindful of that is one responsibility of the artist.
A couple of comments about the pieces you selected as "harmful".
1. "Passion". This is not an "extremely disfigured woman". It is a totem symbol, probably the most common one in human history, which is the fertility goddess-type form. Like this: 
If you dig around on anthropology websites, you will quickly discover that it is almost identical to dozens if not hundreds of ones just like it, created thousands of years ago. I'm not sure what's up with the bar thing, my guess is it is sort of a modern-looking halo that says "but a modern artist did this". This is not harmful art, but it is sorely lacking in innovation. Cities end up commissioning all kinds of things they think are just "abstract", mainly because they are hideously PC when they buy art for public places. I shudder at the commission that got paid for this thing. Innovation level: 1% Derivative level: 99%.
2. "The Broken Column". You couldn't have pulled something more out of context vis-a-vis the total body of her work than this piece by Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo was not a Gothic artist, she was a Latin artist, known for her many, many self-portraits. Obviously she was not having a good time when she painted this one of herself. Not all art is required to function as standalone, although that's nice. The only way to really get what a heavy self-portrait painter does is to look at a lot of their self-portraits. Actually, you should look at all of them, along with other pieces by them.
I would suggest spending a little time at one of the Frida Kahlo sites (if you haven't), or maybe watching the movie about her, if you want to get into what she was all about. She was an extremely passionate artist, though tortured. Not one of my favorites, but I admire a great deal of her work, particularly in how she uses colors. She paints birds beautifully.
Best Regards,
rde
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