Vor dem Gesetz - Before the law

Ever since I've been treated to be made aware of "Before the law" by Franz Kafka I had this instant view of the parable being a (bitter) joke. And now Kasper König has chosen "Vor dem Gesetz" as motto for his final exhibition at the Museum Ludwig Köln, it all makes me wonder again.
For my initial interpretation, which I can hardly come across anywhere, was that the man from the country should by all means have taken the decision to enter. It has been his singular doorway all along. In a way I wonder if this should be also the attitude of the artist: Know what you've come here for and do it. Yet there are of course the guard(s) - others he has only heard of -, but I'm sure that I know them by name and they are pretty powerful indeed, like "Sense of Shame", "Sense of Decency", "Reputation"...

For once be bold and live rather the adventurous life, for indeed I've come across people, who regretfully do have a vocation in their life - something they would in private confess to and issues I  believe only them to be capable of -, but alas this stupid reputation was/is confessedly in their way.

Kafka or Does an Artist Need an Audience?

I miss those evenings and nights sitting next to the regular guys in the pub or café just listening for hours with no particular interest to their converstions until the lights go on and just then being caught up in a fervent argument and feeling so strongly about it that the discussion would go on for at least one hour on the outside. One of the most vividly rememberred was my view that an artist per defintion needs/craves for an audience. My opponent proposed as an example to the contrary Franz Kafka, who in his will left manuscripts to Max Brod instructing him to destroy them, but Brod published them instead. Yet I argued that by writing his stories down Kafka had an audience though this just consisted of one - himself (Jorge Borges comments on the odd experience of re-reading his own writings and becoming a reader indeed - later on he would also write a short story in which he would encounter his later self). And even Max Brod at least must have been perceived as an addressee by Kafka, in that he left those private writings to him. All in all this discussion turned out to be a most inspiring one...