Don’t you think that in the end it is an insult. To deaf people, to people who have to for one reason or another live in silence, to reason.
A painting teacher told me a couple of days ago that the local graduate schools of art are into what is called “conceptual art” and disdainful of traditional art. No skills are required, he said, before catching himself (he was speaking in front of several people.) And this guy is by no means conservative, or a promoter representational art.
I was deaf for a little while in my childhood after scarlet fever and the fellow in the cube next to mine at work is deaf ( I hired him) so I do not think it is an insult, it’s just Cage being Cage. As for the art, my oldest sis is a retired art prof. I think her best was done while she was in highschool and as an undergrad. My youngest is a natural artist as I was and wants to go into animation but if she ever wanted to really study art, I would send her to the Academy of Fine Art in Philly where Eakins studied - they teach the techniques of the great Masters. Every place else probably has had the art culture ransacked by Gramscian infiltrates over the past 50 years.