Heart of Darkness - Artworthy?

In "An Image of Africa", Chinua Achebe states:

“It seems to me totally inconceivable that great art or even good art could possibly reside in such unwholesome surroundings.”

Which got me thinking: what qualifies as art? Who decides what is and what isn’t art? Is it possible for art to be untainted – without a trace of racism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, atheism? Does Conrad’s positioning (by Achebe) as a “bloody racist” exclude Heart of Darkness from the category of great art / “permanent literature”?

I personally do not see the great art-ness of Heart of Darkness (yet), but I do think that all art is tainted. To me, all art necessarily involves violence – a violence done unto reality by its transference onto canvas / paper. Art is about perspective, and Heart of Darkness is Conrad’s perspective of Africa (albeit a racist one).

Taken from http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jconrad.htm:
Conrad crystallized his often quoted goal as a writer: "My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel - it is, above all, to make you see. That - and no more, and it is everything."

That is exactly what Heart of Darkness does. Conrad recreates the Africa he perceived which mirrors “the dominant image of Africa in the Western imagination”. Can we blame him for being born into a century of imperialism and blindness? I think not. Heart of Darkness is indeed racist but it enables its 21st century audience an insight into Western colonial perception of Africa, and hopefully by doing so it prevents us from continuing the ‘colonial legacy of racism’.

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Here are some quotes pertaining to art which I found interesting:

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity. ~ Barenboim, Daniel

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. ~ Oscar Wilde

All great art comes from a sense of outrage. ~ Glenn Close