There are two schools of thought on this- One that says the audience matters more, and one that claims that without the art the audience would have nothing to look at, at which point the audience usually retorts "I'm just here for the free cheese and wine".

All of this is irrelevant of course, because what really matters is neither the art nor the audience, but the tortured soul of the artist wrestling with whether or not these paintings of hot-coffee-skin-burns are 'legitimate'.'