PHILADELPHIA—Eric Fischl was the latest annual speaker in the Locks Foundation Distinguished Artists Series at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia the other evening, and he came close to regaining some of his former reputation for shock.

This wasn’t for the subject that he had chosen, "The Death of Painting from van Gogh to Chris Burden," but rather for the sudden shift into politics that he took at the end of his lecture.

Talking without notes, Fischl’s presentation was for the most part uncompromising but, by his own admission, understandable enough. “I’m trying to find a reason to paint,” he said, only half-joking, “so I’m going to find all kinds of reasons tonight why painting is better than anything else.”

Retracing some of the arguments that he explored in an ArtInfo interview recently, Fischl demonstrated once again the broad streak of old-fashioned humanism that runs through his art. The comparison between van Gogh and Burden was only the starting point. He went on to praise Munch, Caravaggio, and Lucien Freud, and to scathe Pollock, Yves Klein, Warhol, Acconci, and a number of others.

But then, having taken some time to consider the criticism of his 9/11 memorial, Tumbling Woman (2002), he turned directly to contemporary art’s inadequacies. “Maybe we’ve come to a point where the art is inferior to the needs of the culture,” he taunted. And in what sense is it inadequate? In its lack of political courage, surprisingly: “We’ve come to a point where we cannot empathize,” he claimed. “So we can tolerate Abu Ghraib.” And then, to ram it home, “We’re a democratic country that tortures people, and we’re mute …”

Nobody had seen that one coming, least of all the evening’s moderator, Alexi Worth. “It’s hard to know even where to begin to respond,” he stuttered. Somebody might have responded by asking Fischl what he made of Richard Serra’s specifically Abu Ghraib "Stop Bush" poster currently at the Whitney. Nobody did though.