I think this an unfair characterization of contemporary art. I don’t consider myself an expert by any means, but I’ve been to a couple of contemporary art museu

I think this an unfair characterization of contemporary art. I don’t consider myself an expert by any means, but I’ve been to a couple of contemporary art museums (Mass MoCA and one in Kanazawa) and enjoyed both experiences. I believe that the bulk of artists producing contemporary art work very hard at their craft for very little reward. Certainly most of the works I saw featured looked like they required a lot of effort to think up and execute. There were also certainly some pieces that raised an eyebrow and made me think “that’s art?”, but that’s part of the fun IMO. The art collector market is where things tend to go sideways. Collectors do often seem to value the name on the signature over everything else. But in most cases when you see those crazy high sale prices at auction, the money is not going to the artist but rather to some other collector. So I don’t think it’s fair to call an entire genre of art a “con” just because of how rich art collectors behave.