The issue is that everyone has a different definition of what is beauty. Sometimes focusing on the ugly helps to confront it in a way that isn't possible outside of art, for example, death. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I think it's very subjective, so you may find some things edgy and ugly while I find beauty and a way to connect to a difficult concept.

Art doesn't have to have a "message" to be "edgy" and to say that art doesn't celebrate the beautiful in the world makes me think you don't engage with much contemporary art. What it makes me think is that you engage with art by reading about other people's reactions to the type of art you are decrying, and then jumping to the conclusion that is what makes up contemporary art.

Art isn't beautiful if it's a cliche, and that makes it difficult. You can't just keep churning out the same kind of stuff and expect it to resonate the same way each time.

On the contrary, most great art - the kind people actually like, not the weird economic/signalling game sort - comes from exactly that, churning out the same kind of stuff.

Populism is for the artistically illiterate. Maybe a typical 5 years old thinks apple juice and hotdogs are the height of culinary arts, but their opinion is worthless to me because they're too uncultivated to know any better.