Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the

Host: The gallery was a white box of echoes and light, the kind of space that felt both sacred and sterile — like a church where no one prayed anymore. The walls were bare except for a few massive canvases splattered with color, texture, and the kind of chaos that made the onlookers whisper words like brilliant and visionary.

Jack stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, his grey eyes scanning a massive square of crimson and black paint. His expression hovered somewhere between skepticism and amusement. Jeeny stood a few feet away, her brown eyes full of warmth and thought, her fingers clasped around a thin program pamphlet from the exhibit.

Above them, the track lights buzzed faintly, casting long shadows on the polished floor.

Jeeny: “Al Capp once said, ‘Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.’”

Jack: He chuckled. “Finally, someone said it. I’ve been thinking that for years. You throw some paint, call it emotion, and suddenly the art world bows. It’s a scam with good lighting.”

Host: His voice carried a dry edge, like a knife dragged lazily across stone. The people passing by gave him fleeting looks — half pity, half disapproval. But Jack didn’t flinch.

Jeeny: “You think all of this is a scam? You see no soul here? No truth?”

Jack: “Truth? Look at this thing.” He pointed to the painting before them — a wild mess of reds and greys. “If I spilled coffee on a napkin, it would have more intention. This isn’t creation; it’s confusion for sale.”

Jeeny: “You sound like my grandfather when I played him Radiohead.” She smiled faintly. “You’re looking for melody when the meaning is in the noise.”

Jack: “Nice try. But music — even strange music — has structure. Harmony. You can feel purpose under the chaos. This—” he gestured again “—this feels like someone couldn’t draw and decided to call it rebellion.”

Host: The air in the gallery seemed to grow denser, filled with the hum of quiet tension. Somewhere, the faint clink of a wine glass echoed as an artist explained their “process” to a critic too polite to look bored.

Jeeny: “You’re missing the point, Jack. Abstract art isn’t supposed to show the world — it’s supposed to mirror it. You’re not meant to understand it. You’re meant to feel it. To confront yourself in the space between color and emptiness.”

Jack: “That’s convenient. Make something meaningless, and when people don’t get it, call it deep.”

Jeeny: “You think emotion’s meaningless? You think confusion can’t be profound? Look at history — Picasso painted ‘Guernica’ out of grief and rage. Rothko bled loneliness into color. Jackson Pollock turned motion into existence. It’s not decoration, Jack — it’s confession.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened slightly, his brow furrowing. He looked at one of the canvases, this one softer — shades of pale blue, streaked with faint grey, almost like a memory fading.

Jack: “You really believe that? That these splashes of paint can carry something human?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because humanity isn’t neat. It’s abstract. Love, grief, faith — none of them have clean lines. You can’t draw despair, but you can bleed it into color. That’s what these artists do. They paint the things we can’t speak.”

Jack: “And yet most of them are millionaires now, selling their ‘unspeakable emotions’ for six figures to collectors who just want something expensive on the wall. Where’s the purity in that?”

Jeeny: Her voice cooled slightly. “And what would you prefer — that art starve to prove it’s honest? That expression should only exist if it’s poor?”

Host: A pause, long and heavy. Jack’s reflection trembled in the polished floor. The light overhead shifted, tracing half his face in gold, half in shadow.

Jack: “I’m not saying artists shouldn’t live. I’m saying there’s a difference between creation and con. Between emotion and marketing. The world’s full of people pretending to be misunderstood geniuses. They sell mystery because it’s easier than mastery.”

Jeeny: “But sometimes mystery is mastery. Sometimes the hardest part of art is letting go of the urge to explain. You think Pollock’s chaos came from laziness? No, it came from obsession — from the desperate need to release. You can fake skill, Jack, but you can’t fake feeling.”

Host: Jeeny stepped closer to one of the paintings, her fingers hovering just above the canvas, not touching it — just tracing the invisible pulse of its rhythm. Her eyes glimmered with quiet conviction.

Jeeny: “You know, once, after World War II, there were soldiers who said the only way to express what they’d seen was through abstraction. Words failed. Faces failed. Only color and motion came close. So maybe abstraction isn’t confusion — maybe it’s the only honest language left after tragedy.”

Jack: His jaw tightened. “And yet, for every artist like that, there are a hundred frauds hiding behind pretension. Don’t tell me you don’t see it — the critics inventing language to make nonsense sound profound. The buyers pretending to understand just to look intelligent. It’s an empire of make-believe.”

Jeeny: “But doesn’t that say more about us than about art? Maybe the fraud isn’t in the canvas — it’s in the audience. We forgot how to feel without asking for instructions. We look for meaning like it’s a product label.”

Host: The room seemed to exhale. Somewhere, a door opened, letting in a gust of cool air that rustled the edges of the brochures on a nearby table. Jack looked back at the painting, the one with the faint blue he couldn’t name.

Jack: Quietly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m too used to rules — to knowing what something means. I look at this and feel… nothing. And maybe that’s my failure, not the painter’s.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s both. Maybe art isn’t meant to give answers. Maybe it’s just a mirror — and some of us don’t like what we see.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice softened, her words falling like dust in the white air. The crowd had thinned now. The gallery felt empty again, just the two of them standing in the echo of a thousand unspoken interpretations.

Jack: “You think that’s why people buy it? Because it reflects their confusion — their hunger to feel something?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We buy pieces of chaos because we recognize ourselves in them. Because we’re all a little untalented, a little unprincipled, and utterly bewildered.”

Host: Jack’s laughter broke softly, low and almost warm. He shook his head, looking at her.

Jack: “You turned Capp’s insult into a confession for the whole species.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what art does — it takes the insult, and makes it human.”

Host: The lights dimmed as the gallery prepared to close. The paintings glowed faintly under the fading halos of illumination, as if whispering secrets only silence could understand.

Jack looked once more at the crimson and black canvas — its surface no longer chaos, but conversation.

He turned to Jeeny, his voice softer now, almost reverent.

Jack: “Maybe I still don’t get it. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe not getting it is the point.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Confusion isn’t failure — it’s participation.”

Host: The camera pulls back, the two figures small against a sea of white and color. The paintings fade into abstraction as the frame widens — shapes dissolving into meaning, meaning dissolving into shape.

And in that endless blur between clarity and confusion — where color breathes and thought trembles — both truth and fraud share the same heartbeat:

The human need to make sense of the senseless.